Early this week we got wind of a rumor on black gossip sites that rookie Memphis Grizzlies point guard Josh Selby is gay. The Web sites, which don’t deserve to be linked to, had shirtless photos of Selby (like the one on the right) and screen captures of an email telling the alleged male recipient of those photos to not spread them around. Sounds air-tight, right? Wrong. We decided to not run with the rumor. Good thing, since the rumor has been debunked and Selby has said the rumor is not true.

While the shirtless pictures are indeed Selby, SportsGrid dissects the clearly fabricated email exchange posted by the gossip sites:

Early this week we got wind of a rumor on black gossip sites that rookie Memphis Grizzlies point guard Josh Selby is gay. The Web sites, which don’t deserve to be linked to, had shirtless photos of Selby (like the one on the right) and screen captures of an email telling the alleged male recipient of those photos to not spread them around. Sounds air-tight, right? Wrong. We decided to not run with the rumor. Good thing, since the rumor has been debunked and Selby has said the rumor is not true.

While the shirtless pictures are indeed Selby, SportsGrid dissects the clearly fabricated email exchange posted by the gossip sites:

The emails are dated February 4th, 2011. The Twitter account which fake Selby is encouraged to follow by the guy he’s emailing was created on August 21, 2011, meaning that fake Selby is being encouraged to follow a Twitter account which has not yet been created.

Selby himself Tweeted on the genesis of the false rumor:

Yet another reason to stop the gay rumor-mongering: Despite the claims of some readers on this Web site, most rumors are completely false. These black gossip sites seem to be even worse about false rumors, and far more nasty, than gay sites. The blogger who started the rumor says to Selby that shirtless photos sent to “another dude” are “Not A Good Way To Start Your NBA Career.” Disgusting.

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