{"id":665457,"date":"2025-04-26T03:05:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T00:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/stephen-a-smith-speaks-out-on-shannon-sharpe-after-his-first-take-absence-amid-rape-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T03:05:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T00:05:14","slug":"stephen-a-smith-speaks-out-on-shannon-sharpe-after-his-first-take-absence-amid-rape-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/stephen-a-smith-speaks-out-on-shannon-sharpe-after-his-first-take-absence-amid-rape-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith Speaks Out On Shannon Sharpe After His \u2018First Take\u2019 Absence Amid Rape Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tESPN First Take<\/em> host Stephen A. Smith addressed the decision by Shannon Sharpe and ESPN to have the former NFL star take a break from the daily sports opinion show after facing allegations of rape in a lawsuit. <\/p>\n

\n\tSharpe, who denied the allegations, said that he would temporarily step aside from his ESPN duties to respond to the suit, adding that he hoped to return in time for the NFL season.<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith, on his YouTube<\/a> show, addressed the allegations and Sharpe\u2019s decision to step away for the first time, emphasizing his personal friendship with the analyst and Club Shay Shay<\/em> host.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDo I believe that Shannon Sharpe is guilty of what he has been accused of? Absolutely not. That is my personal opinion,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThe brother that I\u2019ve come to know, I don\u2019t believe would assault or rape anybody, and I\u2019m going to state that emphatically, but just as emphatically, I\u2019m going to remind everybody it is my opinion, because of what I feel about him, and not in any way imply that I know a damn thing beyond that, because I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ll always be here for him if he needs me. Just the same way I said that about Skip Bayless when he departed from Fox, just the same way that I would say about any of my friends,\u201d Smith added. \u201cThat\u2019s what friends do, even in the toughest of times, sometimes especially the toughest of times, they ain\u2019t telling you you\u2019re right all the time, and hell, sometimes they may not stop you from falling into that abyss, but they\u2019re there to lift you up when nobody else will.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSmith added that he understood why Sharpe had to step back from his ESPN role.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s been a difficult week from a sports media perspective, certainly as it pertains to First Take<\/em>, Shannon Sharpe became a friend when I recruited him to come on board on ESPN First Take<\/em>, he came on board, and he did a sensational job \u2026 he helped take it to another level last year, and we were doing our thing this year as well,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd so when the news<\/a> came down that he and ESPN had mutually agreed that he would need to come off the airwaves of ESPN, it was a blow, a blow to the show, a blow to me personally, because I\u2019m going to miss him, but it was not a surprise.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been at Disney since October of 2003. I know this place. I know the worldwide leader that is ESPN,\u201d Smith added, noting that he did take a two year break from ESPN beginning in 2009. \u201cThey didn\u2019t need any definitive evidence at this particular moment in time about all of that stuff, once all the things Shannon Sharpe\u2019s lawyer put out there, it was uncomfortable to listen to, and it was not something that Walt Disney wants associated with its brand. So to have him on the airwaves while all of that stuff was put out, that was not something that Disney was going to take. That is what I mean when I say I\u2019m not surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Smith ended his segment by hoping that Sharpe would return to TV.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s all I have to say, other than I hope he\u2019s back in this business real soon on linear television talking some football, because that man knows his football,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd he certainly knows how to entertain us while he\u2019s talking about football. I\u2019m gonna miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ESPN First Take host Stephen A. Smith addressed the decision by Shannon Sharpe and ESPN to have the former NFL star take a break from the daily sports opinion show after facing allegations of rape in a lawsuit. Sharpe, who denied the allegations, said that he would temporarily step aside from his ESPN duties to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":665458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Stephen-A.-Smith-and-Shannon-Sharpe-Split-Getty-H-2025.jpg?w=1296&h=730&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2837],"class_list":["post-665457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-espn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}