Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy recently sat down for a two-hour interview with (currently sidelined) ESPN personality Shannon Sharpe. In the long sit-down, Porntoy touched on everything from the rise of Barstool Sports to his approach to dealing with his enemies.
One of those enemies came up during the conversation. Sharpe mentioned media personality Jasomn Whitlock, and Portnoy did not hold back at all when discussing Whitlock.
“He’s a clown. Jason Whitlock’s a clown,” Portnoy said, according to Awful Announcing. “Jason Whitlock is on the record as being, ‘I love Dave Portnoy. Dave Portnoy is the best. He’s this.’ Jason Whitlock is a click-chasing clown.”
Portnoy pointed toward Whitlock’s comments surrounding FOX Sports personality Joy Taylor, who, Whitlock made crude statements about when Taylor was named as a defendant in the Fox Sports workplace misconduct lawsuit this past January.
That event started a back-and-forth between Whitlock and Portnoy, whom Whitlock called a “sexual degenerate.”
Portnoy believes that Whitlock is simply trying to get engagement online, and has conceded that he’s taken the bait a couple of times.
“He’s gotten me a couple times to his credit, but he’s just fishing,” Dave Portnoy said of Whitlock. “He’s taking his little pole. He is like, ‘maybe it’ll bite and I’ll get some clicks.’ I try to ignore it. I tell people actually, ‘don’t send me bad stuff about me ’cause I have a hard time ignoring it. I don’t even want to know it exists.’
“My Achilles heel is I don’t give a f*ck. It’s like, I know I’m being played here. I know he is getting clicks. But this guy, I mean, he is a clown.”
Whitlock is almost certainly going to have something to say in response. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not Portnoy takes the bait.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.