Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless have a complicated relationship. It isn’t that long ago that the two were having a public spat about what the addition of Smith meant to the success of First Take. Now, Smith is coming to the defense of his friend.
In a video interview for USA Today Sports, reporter McKenzie Salmon asked Smith what his thoughts were about Bayless’s tweet in the wake of Damar Hamlin collapsing on the field during Monday Night Football.
He said that he is never going to join the chorus of condemnation.
“I’m not about to judge Skip Bayless or anybody else for saying the wrong thing. God knows I have. Intent matters. Yes, you’ve got to be sensitive out there. Mental health matters, life matters, human beings’ well-being matters. And when you speak, you have to make sure that you’re sensitive to everything that you can be sensitive to.”
Skip Bayless addressed the backlash to his tweet on Tuesday’s edition of Undisputed on FS1. His position is that the people that are angry at him misinterpreted his message because of the emotions wrapped up in what they had just seen. Reading it outside of the moment, it should be clear that he was saying that finishing the game is not important.
Stephen A. Smith did not defend the tweet, but he did say that he and Bayless have a long history and that he knows him better than many that are calling for his friend’s job.
“I’ve spent years disagreeing with Skip Bayless, I disagree with him now, and I’m going to disagree with him into the future. But he’s still my brother, he’s still a guy that brought me here on First Take and I know who he is, I know what he’s about. Do I agree with everything that he says? Or how he says it? Or the timing with which he uses to say things? No. But the flip side to it is that I know, by and large his heart is in the right place and people make mistakes.”
