FOX & Friends host Brian Kilmeade claims he made a joke about former soccer star David Beckham that was misunderstood, and podcaster Keith Olbermann isn’t buying it for a second.
On Friday’s show, Kilmeade said that the only downside recent decision by Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi to move to the U.S. to play was that he didn’t speak English.
Kilmeade then said — with a smile — that former soccer star David Beckham, who is British, learned to speak the language when he moved to the U.S. at 32. Beckham, obviously, spoke English before moving to the United States.
Olbermann addressed the situation on his Countdown podcast Monday, calling Kilmeade “I guess the comic relief of Fox’s morning show?” before mocking his statements about Beckham.
“I think Kilmeade has said some amazingly stupid things over the years. He once tried to criticize interracial marriage by saying ‘We keep marrying other species’. But, honestly, this may be the worst…No, seriously, Kilmeade said ‘One thing about David Beckham: He learned to speak English for us, only with an accent, when he came at 32 years old’.
“This was not a joke. This was not a gag. This was not hyperbole. Brian Kilmeade thinks Beckham — born in London in 1975 — had to learn English when he came to America. Now, this is already Hall of Fame-level stupid before you realize that before he went to Fox quote News unquote, Brian Kilmeade was a sportscaster. And not just a sportscaster, his job the year before he went to Fox, Brian Kilmeade was a soccer reporter for coverage of games of Major League Soccer.”
Kilmeade has defended himself from criticism by saying that “people have no idea when I’m kidding”.
