TV and radio personality Stephen A. Smith was left tongue-tied last week after being gently called out by Serena Williams’ husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, over remarks he’d made about the tennis legend’s appearance at this year’s Super Bowl.
Appearing on ESPN’s debate show “First Take” on Oct. 9, Ohanian asked Smith point-blank about him implying he would’ve split from Williams after she showcased her crip walk during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show.
“Stephen A. Smith, I think you had some marriage advice for me. Is that right?” said Ohanian, who shares two daughters, Olympia, 7, and Adira, 2, with Williams.
Smith shrugged off the question, noting that he wasn’t “qualified” to speak on the subject of marriage, and he and Ohanian “can get into that another time.”
Ohanian kept his cool, but nonetheless took another tactfully worded dig.
“You hadn’t been married before, right?” he said. “I give advice to plenty of founders who want to build billion-dollar companies, and the reason I do that is because I build billion-dollar companies. So I generally try to stay in my lane.”
Smith, an NBA analyst for ESPN and host of “The Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast, drew backlash in February when he criticized Williams for performing alongside Lamar. The 22-time Grammy-winner included “Not Like Us,” a diss track targeting fellow rapper Drake, as part of his set. Williams reportedly dated Drake on and off from 2011 to 2015, before she went on to wed Ohanian in 2017.
“If I’m your husband, I’m thinking, ‘Why are you up there trolling him—trolling your ex?’” Smith said during a “First Take” broadcast. “If I’m married, and my wife is going to troll her ex—go back to his ass. Because clearly you don’t belong with me. What you worried about him for?”
When his comments on Williams were met with a flurry of criticism, Smith defended himself by claiming he was merely presenting a “man’s perspective” and “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,” he wrote on X. “This doesn’t qualify peeps. Come on.”
In a short video posted to YouTube Sunday after his on-air squabble with Ohanian went viral, Smith clarified his latest “First Take” comments further.
“I have absolutely no issue with him whatsoever wanting to address that situation with me, because that’s her husband, and I certainly meant no disrespect toward him at all,” he said. “I was just saying men, knowing us as men, if we’re married and our wife is showing energy toward anybody else, even in a negative way, we’re asking ourselves: ‘If you’re happy, why show that energy?’ That’s it.”
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