Stephen A. Apologizes to Kyrie For Criticizing His COVID Vax Stance

Stephen A. Smith is known for waxing poetic and shouting his sports hot takes on First Take every morning. But walking back opinions? Not so much.

The sports world often spills over into real life, and eventually politics, perhaps never more apparent than in 2020 amid the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NBA season was on the brink of cancellation, and the world was still learning about the virus while guidance was ever-changing.

One player who’s always followed the beat of his own drum is Kyrie Irving, and he caught a lot of flak for his apprehensiveness about the COVID-19 vaccine.

Smith led the charge against Irving, who said despite him being an “intelligent brother,” he called his vaccine reluctance “nonsense” and “flat-out stupid.”

Now, almost five years later, Smith has changed his mind after watching former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci invoke his Fifth Amendment 111 times while sitting before the Senate Homeland Security Committee to answer questions about COVID-19’s origins.

Smith’s about-face comes with a full apology, and he now appreciates Irving’s hesitance.

“There were many people encouraging folks to do it anyway (get vaccinated). Kyrie Irving wasn’t one of them,” Smith said. “In my opinion, particularly hindsight-wise, it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish; it made him brave. His willingness to stand up and say, ‘No, I’m not doing that.'”

He adds, “Kyrie Irving did nobody wrong. We did him wrong. I did him wrong. And for that, I’m sincerely sorry. I just thought it was important to say that… I need to do better. I’m not alone, but I’m responsible for me. I need to do better. And I will.”

Smith says that whenever he sees “anything about the coronavirus pandemic, and I see anybody testifying, and every time I see further suspicions coming to light about what it entails, I think about him. I’m just sorry, it wasn’t intentional. It was what I believed. And I didn’t even believe there wasn’t stuff that was suspicious about the vaccine.”

For Irving, now with the Dallas Mavericks, the vaccine controversy was career-altering.

He refused to get the New York-mandated jab, leading to him missing 35 of 41 home games at Brooklyn’s Barclays Arena, and one game against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden during the 2021-22 season.

He lost about $15 million by missing those games and estimates about nine figures because the Nets refused to offer him a contract extension over failure to comply. 

“I gave up four years, 100 and something million deciding to be unvaccinated,” Irving said during the Nets’ 2022 media day. “And that was the decision. It was: contract, get vaccinated or being unvaccinated and there’s a level of uncertainty of your future, whether you’re gonna be in this league, whether you’re gonna be on this team.”

Smith’s change in opinion comes after he faced a life-threatening bout of COVID back in 2021, when doctors told him that had he not been vaccinated, he wouldn’t have survived. It was also the catalyst for him getting in shape.

See social media’s reaction to Smith extending an olive branch to Irving below.