Stephen A. Smith is in hot water with…well, just about everyone after making some unsavory comments about Rihanna and her upcoming Super Bowl performance.
Source: Cindy Ord / Getty
During a recent appearance on Sherri, the show’s host Sherri Shepherd asked Stephen A. Smith if he was excited for Rihanna’s upcoming performance at the Super Bowl.
Instead of a simple, “yes!” the sports commentator did what he does best: stir the pot. While he was fairly complimentary to Rih in the process, he still decided to compare the Fenty mogul to Beyoncé, implying he wasn’t as excited for her performance as he was for Bey’s Super Bowl Halftime show in 2016.
“I don’t want to say I’m not excited. She’s fantastic. That’s not where I’m going with this,” Stephen A. said about Rihanna. “She’s a lot of things. She’s spectacular. And congratulations on new mama hood. There’s one thing she’s not. She ain’t Beyoncé.”
When the audience booed, he continued: “The only reason I brought up Beyoncé is because Beyoncé recently performed at the Super Bowl. And without Bruno Mars and Coldplay.”
While a lot of people agree that Beyoncé is in a league of her own when it comes to performing, the comparison was completely unnecessary. So, as the Navy was dragging the sportscaster for his comments on Sherri, he took to Twitter with an “apology” that made things even worse.
“Apologies to Rihanna for my words, gotta be more careful,” the tweet read. “Her fanbase might just be worse than the BeeHive!”
Shortly after, that tweet was deleted, sending out another tweet with the apology–minus the sentence about the BeeHive. He also sent another tweet, blaming the tweet on his team and insisting something like this will never happen again.
“Horrific mistake. Something that was suppose to be a fun moment on the Sherri Shepard show has gotten out of hand,” he wrote. “An overzealous member on my MGMT team — which has access to my account — posted something I would NEVER say about @rihanna, her fans or any other artist. The post… Has been removed.”
He continued, “My social management team will never make a mistake like this again. My apologies again to @Rihanna. And just to be clear, I’m a huge fan. Sherri and I were just having fun. That is all.”
Stephen A. Smith gon’ Stephen A. Smith.
