Stephen A. Smith Saying He’d ‘Divorce’ Serena Williams Is Just as Chilling as Trump Trolling Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift getting booed was not the only moment of high-profile misogyny at the Super Bowl. After Serena Williams made a cameo during Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show, ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith remarked that if Williams was his wife, he’d leave her. But she’s not!

Some backstory: Williams and Drake were briefly romantically linked in 2011, but have had public feud with one another since then. In the lyrics to his diss track against Drake, “Not Like Us,” Lamar references the feud, rapping, “better not speak on Serena.” Both Lamar and Williams are from Compton and the track accuses Drake of trying to perform their shared culture. Hence, one reason Williams was C-walking on stage, another being how loudly she was criticized for doing the same dance at Wimbeldon.

But through some sort of patriarchy calculus, all Smith seemed to see was a woman disrespecting her husband, somehow. “If I’m married and my wife is going to join trolling her ex, go back to his ass,” Smith said on First Take. “’Cause clearly you don’t belong with me. What you worried about him for and you’re with me? Bye. Bye.”

For the record, Williams’s husband Alexis Ohanian has already spoken up in support of his wife, but that’s not really the point. The point is that Smith couldn’t seem to see Williams outside of her relationships with men. Considering the fact that Williams is widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes of all time and Smith is an established sports journalist, he really should know better. What would Smith’s commentary have been if Williams hadn’t been married? That she was just seeking male validation? That she was a crazy ex-girlfriend?

Compare, also, Smith’s comment about Williams to the crowd booing Taylor Swift. The most generous interpretation of the crowd’s reaction to seeing Swift on the jumbotron is that these were Eagles fans and Swift was supporting her boyfriend’s team, the Chiefs. So, the crowd was mad at Swift for supporting her boyfriend? What would people have said if she was supporting the Eagles, her own hometown team? Would Stephen A. Smith threaten to hypothetically leave her ass as well? And not just the boos, but the reactions to the boos. On social media, commenters wrote that she deserved the hate, that people are tired of her, etc. Even Trump reposted the video. (Notably, Serena Williams tweeted a message of support for the pop star in real time.)