Stephen A. Smith just loves stirring the pot.
The “Speakeasy” podcast, featuring Emmanuel Acho, Kieran Hickey-Semple and LeSean McCoy, had some jokes for Smith after he stoked the fire following the surprise exit of popular “First Take” host Molly Qerim.
“The tone is crazy! Can we be honest here, bro? Her leaving, ‘Hey, like she’s resigning.’ Honestly cool. Let people wonder,” Hickey-Semple said on the show after they played the clip of Smith addressing Qerim’s departure. “Your tone and then you saying, ‘You know, the details are none of y’all business, I don’t even know.’ What? You’re just making it so much worse.”
“Here’s my thing, though. Don’t tell us the details, then tell us you’re not going to tell us the details,” Acho said before rattling off reasons they were laughing at Smith. “He said she abruptly resigned. That’s a detail. And then you’re going to say, ‘But don’t ask me the details because I’m not going to tell you all, that’s none of your business. Oh, and I don’t know the details.’”
Hickey-Semple added: “He made it sound like something wild happened, and there is no reason for that.”
Smith certainly made it seem like there is much more to this story after Sports Business Journal broke the news Monday night, with Qerim confirming it on Instagram with a heartfelt letter that started with, “Now that the news came out earlier than I intended, and not in the way I hoped.. “
The initial report stated that Qerim would leave ESPN at the end of the year and the two sides were in contract negotiations before the split.
But with Qerim absent for Tuesday’s show and Smith saying she resigned, it is possible viewers may have seen the last of her on ESPN’s airwaves.
Smith hosted “First Take” on Tuesday in place of Qerim — which included an emotional sendoff — before revealing some details on his self-named YouTube show.
“The details, quite frankly, are none of y’all’ business,” Smith said. “It’s not as if I know all the details. It was a contract negotiation that was going on. ESPN certainly did not want to lose her. But in the end, she made her decision to walk away from the show effective immediately.”
“I don’t like it. I’m not happy about it because I appreciate her and what she has meant to me, and what she has meant to the show, and what she has meant to the business. And I’m going to miss her. It’s just that simple. But we all make decisions that we deem to being our best interest for whatever reason. And that story is for her to tell. Do I have an idea, of course I do. Am I going to share it with you? No. Because again that’s her story to tell.”
No other details were released as to why she decided to leave, and Smith pointed to a contract dispute as the reason.
