Stephen A. Smith & Jay-Z Source: Kevin Mazur/Allen Berezovsky/ Getty Images / Kevin Mazur/Allen Berezovsky/ Getty Images
Stephen A. Smith revealed Jay-Z called to address his comments comparing Beyoncé and Rihanna’s Super Bowl performances.
One of, if not the most outspoken sports personality is Stephen A. Smith, and it’s not even close. The problem with never holding back is sometimes you fly too close to the sun. For unknown reasons when Rihanna was announced as the Super Bowl performer, he decided to remind everyone she wasn’t Beyoncé according to Sports Illustrated.
“There’s one thing she’s not. She ain’t Beyoncé.” Smith dropped the comparison, because Beyoncé performed at the Super Bowl a few years ago. “For ME, there’s Beyoncé and there’s everybody else.” he would add.
As expected he felt a wave of backlash which made Stephen A. back peddle and issue a public apology to Rihanna.
“I’m gonna own it. I know what y’all tryna do but I’m gon’ own it because I get paid to speak for a living so I need to be more careful. I want Rihanna to know: you’re a superstar, you’re sensational. You’re spectacular. You’re no joke. And you are a worthy person to be doing the Super Bowl halftime show.”
During a recent appearance on the Connect The Dots podcast, SAS revealed Jay-Z reached out to him over his halftime show comments.
According to Complex, Jay-Z wanted to advise him on where he took a wrong turn with his statements.
“A month later, Hov and I were on the phone. Hov was like, ‘My dawg, you family, that’s family. That’s too close to say that.’ I said, ‘I didn’t know.’ He said, ‘I know.’ Done!,” Smith said. “In other words, it’s a business, it’s a part of it, you don’t know how she’ll receive it, etc. etc. etc. That’s all he had to say. I appreciated that.”
It didn’t seem HOV had any bad blood about the comments and probably felt SAS statements were comical at best. Furthermore, Roc Nation curates the NFL and Apple Music’s Halftime Show so any slander is almost a shot at HOV directly.
You can watch Stephen A. tell the story below.
