Sports pundit Sarah Spain slams Shane Gillis over ‘hacky’ jokes about female athletes
Sports media personality Sarah Spain took issue with comedian Shane Gillis’s jokes at the ESPY Awards, specifically the ones aimed toward female athletes. Spain criticized the comedian for making jokes about Caitlin Clark working at a Waffle House when she retires from the WNBA to continue ‘fist-fighting Black women,’ needling former U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe and tricking the crowd into believing his friend’s wife was a former WNBA player.
Spain expressed her disapproval on X, calling the jokes ‘hacky’ and highlighting the disrespect towards Black women. The crowd in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theatre also seemed to react poorly to the Clark joke, which was part of Gillis’s set at the event.
Throughout the night, Gillis also made jokes about a range of other figures, including President Donald Trump, Aaron Rodgers, Jeffrey Epstein, and O.J. Simpson. Even he couldn’t believe that Disney allowed him to say some of the things he was saying, stating, ‘They let me do it, I don’t know,’ after making jokes about Belichick and his relationship with Jordan Hudson.
The incident underscores the tensions surrounding gender and racial stereotypes in sports commentary, with Spain’s public condemnation drawing attention to the broader implications of such jokes in a cultural and social context.