Emily Austen of Fox Sports Florida is getting a bit of a timeout from work after appearing as a guest on a Facebook Live video by Barstool Sports and saying some pretty inflammatory things. She managed to be offensive about Mexicans, Asians, and Jews in the span of just a few minutes, after ensuring that she never gets an interview with Kevin Love again.
The show, where they run down a bunch of viral topics, was deleted from Facebook after it aired, but it was saved by someone on the Barstool subreddit. Barstool’s founder, El Presidente, claimed that someone accidentally deleted the footage before they could edit and air the saved version, but you can make your own judgment as to why a video where a TV personality complains about Jews being cheap might get deleted. Of course, since this is the internet, everything lasts forever.
Just after the show begins properly, at around 11 minutes in, Austen calls Love “a little bitch” multiple times, which is quite a thing to say when you’re a sideline reporter who covers the Orlando Magic and could actually be in the same room with him at some point in the future.
At the 24:25 mark, she responds to the valedictorian student who tweeted that she’s an undocumented immigrant by saying, “I didn’t even know Mexicans were that smart.”
At the 26:10 mark, talk shifts to Jewish people, and Austen complains about them being stingy, telling stories of waiting tables in Boca and judging people she thought were Jewish as being poor tippers. On that one, the Barstool hosts were right there agreeing with her.
Unsurprisingly, Austen is paying for it — her employers at Fox Sports Florida sent this statement to Deadspin regarding the video:
We were made aware that Emily Austen appeared in a social media video unaffiliated with FOX Sports in which she made insensitive and derogatory comments. She was not speaking on behalf of FOX Sports, nor do we condone any of the statements she made in the video. Emily has been advised that her comments were unacceptable, and she is not scheduled to appear on any upcoming FOX Sports Florida or FOX Sports Sun broadcasts.
So, it seems like for her statements, Austen is off TV for the foreseeable future. And if you’re wondering whether this was a one-time thing for her, we can’t say for sure, but she certainly seemed to imply in this old tweet that she’s no stranger to, let’s say, off-color remarks:
https://twitter.com/emilyausten_/status/730073750767570945
Update: After being fired by FOX Sports Sun, Austen has released a statement apologizing for her comments:
https://twitter.com/emilyausten_/status/741986365139738624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
