ESPYs host Serena Williams and Quinta Brunson took a jab at Kansas Metropolis Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in the course of the awards ceremony Thursday night time.
The second occurred as Williams and Brunson mentioned girls’s sports activities with Venus Williams on the sports activities awards present.
“So, go forward and luxuriate in girls’s sports activities such as you would another sports activities, as a result of they’re sports activities,” Venus stated.
“Besides you, Harrison Butker. We don’t want you,” Serena quipped.
“In any respect. Like, ever,” Brunson added because the viewers laughed.
Butker attended the ESPYs, however the digital camera didn’t pan to him to catch his response.
In a press release Friday, Butker stated, “I assumed Mrs. Williams was an ideal host and applaud her for utilizing her platform to specific her beliefs on a wide range of matters.”
“Sports activities are presupposed to be the nice unifier and at an occasion devoted to celebrating a various group of women and men who’ve completed nice feats, she used it as a possibility to disinvite these with whom she disagrees with from supporting fellow athletes,” he added.
The NFL kicker obtained widespread backlash over his graduation speech in Could at Benedictine Faculty when he asserted that one of many “most vital” roles for a girl is being a homemaker.
“What number of of you might be sitting right here now, about to cross this stage, and are desirous about all of the promotions and titles you’ll get in your profession? A few of chances are you’ll go on to guide profitable careers on this planet,” he stated throughout his speech.
“However I’d enterprise to guess that almost all of you might be most enthusiastic about your marriage and the youngsters you’ll convey into this world,” Butker stated.
Criticism rapidly adopted, with some graduating college students saying his remarks have been “uncomfortable” and that it was not the “time and place.”
A spokesperson for the NFL informed Individuals Journal that Butker’s “views usually are not these of the NFL as a company.”
Butker stated he has no regrets concerning the feedback he made throughout his speech.
Williams is not first celeb to blast Butker throughout a present. Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder took purpose on the kicker in the course of the band’s Las Vegas live performance in Could, saying, “There’s nothing extra masculine than a robust man supporting a robust girl.”