After Serena Williams referred to as him out for his controversial feedback about ladies in a current speech, Kansas Metropolis Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is responding.
The tennis legend hosted the annual ESPN sports activities award present July 11 and took a verbal shot at Butker after he criticized IVF, Pleasure month and the “diabolical lies” advised to ladies about having a profession in a 20-minute graduation speech at Kansas’ Benedictine Faculty in Could.
Serena Williams and her sister Venus Williams have been onstage with “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson throughout a phase highlighting ladies’s sports activities.
“So, go forward and revel in ladies’s sports activities such as you would some other sports activities, as a result of they’re sports activities,” Venus Williams mentioned in the course of the broadcast.
“Besides you, Harrison Butker,” Serena Williams replied. “We don’t want you.”
“In any respect. Like, ever,” Brunson chimed in.
The sports activities media information web site Terrible Asserting shared a clip of the second on X, the place it has acquired greater than 70,000 likes.
Serena Williams’ remark, which was met with applause and a few scattered boos, was made with Butker in attendance. He was photographed on the crimson carpet as he supported the Chiefs, who have been nominated for finest staff, and teammate Patrick Mahomes, who was nominated for finest NFL participant and finest athlete in males’s sports activities.
In his response to NBC Information’ request for remark, Butker wrote that Williams was “an awesome host” and applauded her for “utilizing her platform to precise her beliefs on quite a lot of subjects.”
“Sports activities are alleged to be the good unifier and at an occasion devoted to celebrating a various group of women and men who’ve achieved nice feats, she used it as a possibility to disinvite these with whom she disagrees with from supporting fellow athletes,” he mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Throughout his Could graduation speech, Butker particularly addressed the feminine graduates within the viewers, saying that they had been advised “diabolical lies.” He mentioned they need to be extra enthusiastic about marriage and youngsters than embarking on their careers, utilizing his spouse, Isabelle, for example.
“I can let you know that my lovely spouse, Isabelle, could be the primary to say that her life actually began when she started dwelling her vocation as a spouse and as a mom,” he mentioned.
“Isabelle’s dream of getting a profession won’t have come true, however for those who requested her at the moment if she has any regrets on her determination, she would chortle out loud, with out hesitation, and say, ‘Heck, no,'” he mentioned later within the speech.
He additionally mentioned the male graduates must be “unapologetic in your masculinity, combating towards the cultural emasculation of males.”
The speech had ladies responding with insults, jokes and sarcasm at Butker’s view of restrictive gender roles. The rival Los Angeles Chargers additionally lampooned Butker with animation of him within the kitchen in a video releasing the staff’s 2024 schedule. A bunch of nuns related to Benedictine Faculty additionally denounced the feedback.