{"id":260025,"date":"2025-08-04T02:38:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/260025\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T02:38:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T02:38:12","slug":"stephen-a-smith-responds-to-criticism-from-michelle-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/260025\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Responds To Criticism From Michelle Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen A. Smith Responds To Criticism From Michelle Obama<\/a> originally appeared on The Spun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, Michelle Obama made the bold decision to call out ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith on her podcast.<\/p>\n

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During the latest episode of the “IMO” podcast, Obama compared Smith to reality TV stars. She also compared ESPN’s shows to “The\u00a0Real Housewives of Atlanta.” It was a pretty ruthless take from the former first lady.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s all a sociological study. They think that sports is better reality TV, I\u2019m like, \u2018it\u2019s the same thing.’ If I listen to ESPN for an hour, it\u2019s like watching the \u2018Real Housewives of Atlanta,\u2019 you know?” Obama said, via Fox News Digital<\/a>. “It\u2019s the same drama, and they\u2019re yelling at each other, and they don\u2019t get along, you know?<\/p>\n

“I mean, Stephen A. Smith, he\u2019s just like every other. So that\u2019s why I\u2019m like, \u2018what\u2019s the difference?\u2019 It\u2019s just, you know, it\u2019s just sociological drama. I mean, the fact that people over seasons of working still can\u2019t get along. They still have the same arguments, you know, and it\u2019s not just women. But this happens in sports, too. I find it fascinating.”<\/p>\n

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There were plenty of sports fans who agreed with Obama’s comments about the Worldwide Leader in Sports. Obviously, Smith wasn’t one of them.<\/p>\n

Before Smith stated his counterargument, he brought up an issue he has with Obama.<\/p>\n

\"BOSTON,<\/p>\n

BOSTON, MA – JUNE 14: Stephen A. Smith looks on during the game between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks during Game Four of the 2024 NBA Finals on June 14, 2024 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Jim Cowsert\/NBAE via Getty Images)Jim Cowsert&sol;Getty Images<\/p>\n

“When you were campaigning on behalf of the former Vice President Kamala Harris … you said a vote for Trump was a vote against you and a vote against y\u2019all as women. I want to say for the record – I took major offense to that. I think to this day is the only thing that I didn\u2019t like that you said, I didn\u2019t appreciate it,” Smith said, via OutKick<\/a>. “Because there\u2019s so many things that go into deciding where your vote is going to go. For some people, it\u2019s all about the economy. For others, it\u2019s all about national security. For some people, it is immigration. For some people, it\u2019s safety in the streets of America. Long before they think about pro-choice or pro-life.”<\/p>\n

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Smith then addressed the former first lady’s remarks about ESPN basically being reality TV.<\/p>\n

“So this doesn\u2019t have anything to do with what you were talking about, how sports and reality TV mirror one another, even though we would beg to differ. Because a lot of things on reality TV are made-up situations and scenarios to provoke reactions and all of that stuff. We\u2019re at sports, that\u2019s live entertainment, and you\u2019re actually competing against one another is big time. No, reality TV is not like that. You\u2019re so wrong about that, about that assertion, but that\u2019s neither here nor there.”<\/p>\n

Smith finished his rant by saying he’d never “utter a negative word” about Obama. That being said, it’s unlikely this turns into some full-fledged war of words.<\/p>\n

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Related: Sports Fans React To Michelle Obama Calling Out Stephen A. Smith<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephen A. Smith Responds To Criticism From Michelle Obama<\/a> first appeared on The Spun on Aug 3, 2025<\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by The Spun<\/a> on Aug 3, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Responds To Criticism From Michelle Obama originally appeared on The Spun. Last week, Michelle Obama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[14009,15475,12,7,51161,6,47381,26945,1871],"class_list":{"0":"post-260025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-boston-celtics","9":"tag-dallas-mavericks","10":"tag-espn","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-michelle-obama","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-real-housewives-of-atlanta","15":"tag-reality-tv","16":"tag-stephen-a-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114968179838610131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}