Ryan Clark regrets bringing Robert Griffin III’s wife into things.
Clark, 45, publicly apologized to Griffin, his former NFL teammate, on “The Pivot” podcast on Friday over comments he’d made about the former quarterback’s wife, Grete, as their beef over the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese rivalry got personal.
“She should not have been brought up in me trying to make a point about how having Black women close to you and the things that you can learn from them can help you approach how you speak to, and about them,” Clark said said of Grete, who is white. “She didn’t need to be the illustration of that. I could speak positively about what they are without making the insinuations that it’s something that non-Black women don’t do well.”
Clark elaborated on his thought process behind the initial video of the Griffin couple, discussing the feud between WNBA stars Reese and Clark.
“In the video that RG3 posted that I felt mocked Angel Reese, she [Grete] was in the background,” Clark said. “I did not love the optics of RG3, a Black man, attacking and imitating, and what I felt insulting a black woman, with his wife in the background almost as a prop, and, in my opinion, applauding what I felt was a personal attack.”
In the video that set off the ex-NFLers’ feud, Griffin claimed that Reese “hated” Caitlin Clark, and that was the reason behind the Chicago forward’s reaction to a flagrant foul by the Fever star in their season-opening matchup.
The ESPN analyst responded to Griffin, claiming that he is not educated on what “Black women deal with” because both his marriages have been to white women — which Griffin said crossed a line by bringing family into the argument.
“Ryan Clark personally attacking me and my family personally over a sports opinion is cowardly, spineless, and weak,” Griffin wrote. “Ryan Clark personally attacking me and my family personally over a sports opinion is a bad look for ESPN and for him as a man.”
Clark wrapped up his apology on the podcast by directly addressing Grete, who shares three daughters with Griffin.
“I was out of line, I was out of bounds, I apologize,” Clark said. “To all of the people who don’t line RG3’s take or the way that he moves, or even if you just take my side in this conversation, leave his family alone.”