Stephen A. Smith joined Kevin Hart this week on the comedian’s SiriusXM show Gold Minds. During their conversation, Smith was asked to think about times he has taken missteps in the public eye. His mind went immediately to the Sherri Shepherd Show earlier this year.
“I come on Sherri Shepherd’s show. They asked me about Rihanna,” Smith explained “Listen, Kev, all they said to me was we want, literally before the show, Kev, they said, ‘Look, Stephen A, we want to emulate a segment on First Take. So when Sherri brings up something, we want you to basically create a debate’. I said, okay, well, Rihanna’s all that and a bag of chips. She’s a superstar. I love her. I buy her albums. She’s great, but there’s only one Beyonce. And the next thing I know, you would’ve thought I shot somebody.”
The ESPN star caught heat on social media for the opinion. He told Hart that he wasn’t surprised by the love for Rihanna, but he was taken aback by the types of people he was hearing from insisting that he said something wrong.
“They’ll remain nameless, but I had some of your brethren, Hollywood stars, Kev, going like this, ‘Man, you gotta watch what you say, Stephen’. I mean, man. I mean, serious. They came at me like I committed a crime.”
The public backlash was so intense that Stephen A. Smith eventually took to Twitter to issue something of an apology. He even reiterated his fandom for Rihanna in his video.
“What’s the crime?” he said. “I didn’t say she sucked. She’s great. She’s fantastic. But that’s the world we’re living in. I didn’t know it was gonna be like that, Kev.”
