Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey is sticking to his guns after he criticized Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles for bowing to Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade at the Paris Olympics.
Andrade, who won the gold medal in the floor exercise final, was celebrated on the podium by her American counterparts – who both bowed to her as the champion of the mat.
Humphrey was none too pleased by this and tweeted out in the moment, ‘This is literally disgusting.’
He explained things from his point of view on his ‘Punch Line’ podcast in their latest episode on Sunday.
‘Dude, lemme tell you my perspective. I get on Twitter, I was like what the frick? Why are we bowing to anybody? This is freaking America, why are we bowing to another country? I didn’t even know what country that was, honestly.
Rebeca Andrade (center) receives bows from Americans Simone Biles (L) and Jordan Chiles (R)
Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey saw that scene and posted his disapproval on Twitter
‘I just seen two people bowing, I said this is crazy from a whole human perspective, ethical. Should never bow to no man except God. So I said, “Golly this is wild”.
‘Tweeted that and said, “Dang, that is Simone Biles. I might get cooked by the Biles army.” Clearly I’m not a gymnast guy… I didn’t know if she had an army.’
Humphrey then said that he didn’t think anything of his tweet until people came up to him at practice asking him about his comments.
That included team owner Steve Bisciotti and general manager Eric DeCosta who asked him about his tweet.
He also said that his follower numbers shot up and he received plenty of comments with Brazilian flags and, as Humphrey put it, ‘talking Brazilian’.
‘After I got out of practice, I was like “what did I do” and they said “your tweet” I’m like “what about it”… I guess it turned into I disrespected Brazil, I guess.’
‘The crazy thing is, I was like, “this is lit” ’cause like followers were going stupid lowkey… so it wasn’t like effecting me at all. I was just like “I’m just poppin’ I’m kinda him right now.” I believe there’s no such thing as bad media.’
Humphrey did say that he tried to learn, ‘a little Brazilian’ in order to respond to the multiple tweets he was receiving.
His tweet drew ire from Brazilians who enjoyed the show of respect from the Americans
Humphrey even decided to mock former First Lady Michelle Obama on his show as well
It should be noted that when his co-host and editor corrected him to say that people in Brazil speak Portuguese, he doubled down calling the language ‘Brazilian’ before saying, ‘If you gon’ cuss me out at least translate it to English and then post it.’
After hearing from Bisciotti and DeCosta, he then talked about a response to the bowing from Michelle Obama.
‘It was like three days later she was like “I think this is such a good thing”, it wasn’t necessarily [because of me but] it was, it was. I was like, “Michelle Obama knows me?” It’s kinda fire.
‘I was at the White House, was by [Barack] Obama, so she might have had googly eyes for me way back when, back in college. I’m just saying, [I] was at her crib.’
Humphrey concluded, ‘Long story short, honestly I never really disrespected the Brazilian people, but to them I did. I did think about making amends, and then I said, “I didn’t really do anything”… Honestly, I don’t even know where Brazil is on a map. So it would be hard for me to really beef with Brazil.’
Luckily for Humphrey, he doesn’t play on the Philadelphia Eagles or the Green Bay Packers – the two teams set to open their season in Brazil on Friday.
He did say, ‘I ain’t gon’ lie, I’ll say this tho, if we was playing in Brazil I would not be leaving my hotel room, I ain’t gon’ cap.’
