Stephen A. Smith apologizes to Kyrie Irving for criticizing his refusal to take Covid vax

Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith offered an apology to Kyrie Irving during his show on Friday after watching the congressional hearing with Dr. Anthony Fauci, who took the Fifth Amendment 111 times during his appearance on the Hill, even refusing to answer questions such as "what color is your tie."

Smith said that he "felt compelled" to issue an apology to Irving, who was slammed by Smith and others for not getting the COVID-19 shot back in the 2021 to 2022 season.

“There’s several people that we all owe apologies to, and I’ll put myself at the front of the list, but none more so than the apology that I owe to Kyrie Irving,” Smith, 58, said in a near 20-minute monologue for his "Stephen A. Smith Show" on Sirius XM. He said that he wanted to take the time to issue the apology despite being "on vacation."

“The reality is, is that Kyrie Irving, no matter what we think, may have been more right than we have given him credit for and unquestionably was more vilified than he deserved. And ladies and gentleman, it starts with me,” he added. “We saw vaccine mandates and booster mandates and you know distancing stipulations and mask mandates and all of this other stuff. And along the way, there were a select few individuals in the world of sports especially that stood up and said, ‘Nah, I’m not down for this.'"

During the 2021-2022 season, Irving sat out for 35 games because of New York's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Smith said that he got a chance to watch the hearing with Fauci, and that after watching, he decided that he and many others "did [Irving] wrong."

Irving had clinched a near $35 million contract and gave up 1 percent of his salary for each game that he missed, costing the star basketball player over $13 million. The vaccine rules were later lifted, and Mayor Eric Adams signed an exemption for athletes and performers in March 2022.

Smith laid into Fauci over the appearance on the Hill: “Doesn’t mean that Dr. Fauci was totally wrong just because he pleaded the Fifth 111 times. It means there’s ground for suspicion," but he stopped short of condemning the official.