Paul Pierce Still Believes ESPN Firing Over Viral Stripper Video Was Unjust: ‘What Did I Do Wrong?’
Retired NBA star Paul Pierce still thinks his firing from ESPN in 2021 was unnecessary.
The company fired him shortly after he went live on Instagram during a party. He was surrounded by what appeared to be strippers and he was also smoking weed.
On Monday’s episode of the I AM ATHLETE podcast, Pierce talked in depth about the night of the party and the immediate aftermath.
“I got fired for having some entertainment,” Pierce said. “I’m playing cards, it’s my boy’s birthday, it’s girls dancing, and we’re blowing some tree. I mean, what did I do wrong?”
Paul Pierce was lit on his Instagram live 😂
— NBA SKITS (@NBA_Skits) April 3, 2021
Retired NFL running back LeSean McCoy, one of the show’s hosts, then asked for a reenactment of an ESPN representative reaching out to Pierce after the video went viral.
“They hit me, and it was a higher-up,” Pierce said. “It was a lady. I’m like, ‘Hello?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing an investigation. Could you tell us what happened?’ I’m like, ‘You didn’t see it?’ I was just hanging out, playing cards. It wasn’t my house. I mean, it was self-explanatory.”
While he contended that nothing he did was illegal, he acknowledged that ESPN is owned by Disney and he had an image to uphold. Pierce said the company asked him to make a public apology. He refused because he felt was being unjustly held to a higher standard than others.
“All them CEOs who own these networks, what shit do you think they’re doing behind the scenes?” he said. “And they probably got more shit going on.”
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