Stephen A. Smith doesn’t want to talk about the potential details of NBA legend Dwight Howard being bi. Or gay. Or bi. Or gay. Or… eewwww, of course!
No, Smith doesn’t want to talk about any of it. At all.
The worst person in sports media wouldn’t DARE want to talk about this topic. An NBA dude with dudes?
“Ewwwwww,” Smith says (proverbially, of course, because he wouldn’t dare actually say what’s on his mind).
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Smith doesn’t seem to want to talk about an LGBTQ person’s life in the NBA, the league he covers.
And yet, he soooooo wants to talk about it.
“It is not comfortable for me to talk about this subject,” Smith said. “I just don’t get it. I’m being careful.”
Oh yes, so “careful” that he had to describe Howard’s alleged intimate encounter with another man in detail.
So “careful.”
Smith wouldn’t DARE fuel the flames of speculation, as he spills all the tea about Howard’s alleged trist, going waaaaay beyond Outsports’ coverage of this.
Smith couldn’t POSSIBLY do that. Because… ewwwww! He couldn’t possibly!
Still, that’s what Smith did this week, reading — with his eyes covered, of course — some alleged details about Howard’s intimate life.
Because Smith clearly needs to publicly read details about it.
DON’T MAKE ME!!
After talking about the exchange of explicit photos and videos, Smith had this to share:
“Lord have mercy, let me just pause. Oh my goodness.”
In the video of him reading this — oh please god, forgive me — information, Smith put his head down, as though seemingly to pray, because — duh — a totally 100% straight guy like Smith has to be totally grossed out by any information about men having sex with one another.
Totally. Straight.
Of course, Smith didn’t have to read any of it. But he did. For your sake! Of course.
This was all before discussing the actual allegations. It seems Smith wasn’t comfortable at all with Howard sharing himself explicitly with another man. That was seemingly beyond acceptable for Smith.
“Quel rat!”
Holly Golightly herself is spinning in her grave.
Smith “just can’t” talk about intimacy between two (or three) men, apparently. He proclaimed that repeatedly in his segment. Because, of course, he’s totally straight and couldn’t possibly get any joy from talking about men being with one another.
“To each his own,” Smith said. “You gay and that’s what you want to do? Cool. I’m not here to judge.
Oh right. No judgment. Of course. No, none at all. Despite Smith’s public uncomfortable reaction. No, no judgment. Duh!
Despite Smith’s cover-my-ass nonsense about “this is why teams didn’t want him,” you can only wonder why Smith himself would physically cover his eyes and reject the recounting of (either party’s) description of events — or why he’d read about them in the first place.
I hadn’t read them. It wasn’t until watching Smith’s rantings — obsessed with the “details” of the Howard allegations — that I had any idea about any of it.
Oh, this NBA legend had sex with another guy. And a third guy may have been there.
BLASPHEMY! GET OUT! I DON’T WANT TO SEE IT! COVER MY EYES!!!!
(But hold my iPad as I look into every single potentially salacious detail about what’s alleged. Yum yum.)
Smith continued to deflect, suggesting Howard’s absence from the NBA’s all-75 team could have been possibly, conceivably, maybe if you thought about it — “I’m totally guessing” — Smith, of course, deflected despite actually taking a stand.
“I’m totally guessing,” Smith said. He has no actual insight, he’s just “totally guessing” to incite people who might join the Stephen A. Smith train.
And LGBTQ people like Howard are left in Smith’s self-centric wake.
