You will NEVER be able to accuse Stephen Jackson of not keeping it real or failing to speak his mind. It’s the kind of behavior that has cost him a job (and maybe another ring) … but on the bright side it makes him an incredible interview.
Watch all of this interview on ESPN’s “Highly Questionable” with Dan LeBatard and Bomani Jones. It is the extreme polar opposite of almost every other cliched-riddled athlete interview you have ever seen.
Dan and Bomani ask S-Jack about, among other things, his role in the Malice at the Palace. Jackson gives it straight:
“Well let me say this. All the racial slurs, all the things I’ve heard, all the things I’ve heard about my mom and my basketball game and my kids, and all this, it felt good to punch a fan one time … I’m not going to lie. I regret it, because I lost three million dollars and I almost lost my job. And I regret it, but when I initially went into the stands, I went in there to help Ron, if you look at the tape. I go up to a row above Ron, because I was trying to grab him. Well as I got up there to grab him, another fan threw another beer in his face. I felt like he got assaulted at the time, so if you’re up here, you should be breaking it up. But if you throw a beer, you deserve a lick too. He got it.”
And this story about Metta World Peace in the moments after the brawl:
“I don’t think [Artest] was thinking at the time. Me and Jamaal Tinsley every time I see him we laugh at this. Right after the brawl, we’re in the locker room. And this is why I said [Artest] never said ‘thanks.’ So we’re in the locker room, legs all scratched up from hopping over the bleachers, our adrenaline pumping, we laid a couple people out, like we did something, know what I mean? We all sit back, and Ron Artest aka Metta World Peace, leans back and looks at Jamaal Tinsley and asks us, ‘do you think we’re going to get in trouble?’ I said ‘Ron, in trouble?! We’re lucky if we still have a job!’ That was the funniest thing ever. Trouble? We’re lucky we have a job Ron.”
The whole interview is worth watching (the brawl is just one part of it).
Check it out here:
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