Dave Portnoy says he recently faced antisemitic slurs while visiting Mississippi.
Speaking about the encounter during an appearance on CBS Sunday Morning, the Barstool Sports founder told host Tony Dokoupil that he believes antisemitism has surged.
“Occasionally you get, ‘Hey, kike’ or ‘Jew’ or whatever. It’s every day now. Like, there’s a definitive shift in what’s going on,” Portnoy shared. “So yeah, now, for me being a Jewish person, you have to step up. You’re kind of someone people look up to in the Jewish community. You have to go, ‘Alright, this is not normal, ha-ha with the guys. People are coming up with real hate.'”
Dokoupil later pressed Portnoy about Barstool’s rise being “based on not being afraid to offend,” asking whether he saw any connection between that and the backlash he’s experiencing now.
“No,” Portnoy replied. “Because I think Barstool, and myself, has always had a pretty good moral compass. We’ve never stood for hate or anything of that ilk.
“I mean, do I think that feminists should complain about a Diet Coke can being skinny, and that somehow is, like, leading to an eating disorder by Diet Coke having a skinny can? That I think’s crazy. And there are things that I think people get far too worked up [about], like he/she, verbs — like, crazy to me. Making jokes that you are trying to hurt people’s feelings and are based in hate? That’s never flown with us.”
Yahoo reported that the man who threw coins at Portnoy and yelled antisemitic slurs was identified as 20-year-old Patrick McClintock. The incident happened outside a Mississippi pizza shop where Portnoy was filming content. McClintock has since been charged with disturbing the peace.
Tim Miller — a political consultant who previously identified as Republican, now Independent, and openly anti-Donald Trump — weighed in on Portnoy’s CBS comments.
“Let’s just be honest here this is ridiculous. Nobody’s ever made a joke that hurt anyone’s feelings at barstool?” Miller posted on X.
Other X users jumped into the discussion, reposting Portnoy’s CBS clip and pointing to some of his most controversial moments — from wishing missiles would hit Greta Thunberg’s aid flotillas headed to Gaza, to making rape jokes, to repeatedly facing sexual assault allegations.
“HOLY FUCK, WHAT??? Portnoy and Barstool have made racist jokes, defended blackface, made sexist jokes, made rape jokes, joked about the ‘f**kability’ of female sports reporters, joked about the personal appearances of their employees including their weight, attractiveness and smell, etc etc,” one user wrote. “This sanctimonious clown and some (not all) of his crew have made all kinds of jokes intended to hurt peoples feelings. GTFOH.”
Another user added: “Dave Portnoy is everything embarrassing/despicable abt right-wing ‘masculinity.’ He’s serially accused of sexual assault & called on foreign terrorist state to kill Greta Thunberg. But Dave Portnoy is the real victim because a random teen was mean to him.”
A third chimed in: “A lot of people in sports media saw this dude and his kingdom of dorks saying the wildest racist and sexist shit for years, and cozied up to them — pretending that he was just another sports personality. And now he gets to try and pull this bullshit act about civility.”
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