The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg tore into ESPN host Stephen A. Smith for suggesting he would divorce former pro tennis legend Serena Williams after her cameo at the Super Bowl halftime performance featuring Kendrick Lamar.
Williams sparked online backlash after she was seen doing the crip walk alongside Lamar's backup dancers to his song, "Not Like Us," a diss track aimed at the music artist's nemesis, rapper Drake.
Crip Walking was a hip-hop-inspired dance move popularized in the 1970s by The Crips, a Los Angeles gang tied to murders, drugs, and association with the mafia.
Smith was among fellow critics who slammed Williams for trolling Drake, who she allegedly dated.
Goldberg played back the ESPN clip in which Smith fretted to colleagues:
“If I’m married and my wife is going to join trolling her ex, go back to his ass, ’cause clearly you don’t belong with me."
"What you worried about him for and you’re with me? Bye. Bye.”
You can see Smith's rant here.
In response to Smith's hot take that divided the internet, Williams' husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, praised her and called the performance a "pretty fantastic halftime show."
At the London 2012 Summer Olympics, Williams was accused of "glamorizing gang culture" for doing the crip walk on Wimbledon's grass court after beating tennis player Maria Sharapova in the final.
Ohanian referenced the controversy to make his point that the context of her dancing at the Super Bowl was completely innocuous.
Ohanian wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
"Some of y'all have no idea how criticized Serena was for this same dance at Wimbledon 13 years ago and it shows.... This is bigger than the music.
After Ohanian defended his wife of over seven years for her polarizing Super Bowl appearance, Goldberg entered the discussion.
She addressed Smith and asked the ESPN host why he couldn't have gone in a more positive direction with his observation about the halftime show.
Goldberg wondered:
“Why wasn’t it, ‘Damn, Serena was great?’ Why is it about some ex-boyfriend she hasn’t thought of?”
“She got a chance to do something she wanted to do, and she went and did it, and instead of saying, ‘Damn, that was kind of great,’ you’re bringing it back to some old stuff.”
You can see a clip here.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
Goldberg maintained Williams's cameo was not about a past fling, and she doubled down, saying:
“Stop trying to make it about somebody’s man. It ain’t always about somebody’s man."
"It’s about the person. Forget all that other stuff.”
Social media users agreed with Goldberg and shared their thoughts on Smith's grousing.
Several users also dragged Smith, 57, a single father of two teenagers, and suggested the unmarried commentator should stick to sports.
After Smith received a barrage of negative comments for his controversial remarks, he cleared the air on X, writing:
"Please go back and look at exactly what I said. I was talking overall from a man’s perspective—highlighting what most men would think."
"I didn’t utter a single disrespectful word about Serena. No issues with folks getting upset of literal serious stuff one’s pissed about."
"This doesn’t qualify peeps. Come on. We were joking around on @FirstTake. Damn y’all! It’s not that serious," he added.
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