Angel Reese mentioned what she needed to say in her podcast debut on Thursday, all on the expense of Caitlin Clark followers.
Within the first episode of her podcast, the WNBA Rookie of the 12 months contender used a phase to debate her private historical past with followers of her longtime rival, Clark.
Reese didn’t straight criticize Clark, however she mirrored on the second her interactions with Clark actually started to ramp up. It occurred proper when she made the celebratory gesture of pointing to her ring finger in Clark’s face in the course of the closing minutes of Reese’s and LSU’s NCAA title win over Clark and Iowa within the 2023 championship recreation.
It was a second that Reese says “changed my life forever.” It was a second that ignited a sequence of intense interactions between sure members of Clark’s passionate followers and Reese and a few of her Chicago Sky teammates.
“I think it’s really just the fans, her fans, the Iowa fans, now the Indiana fans, that are really just, they ride for her, and I respect that, respectfully. But sometimes it’s very disrespectful. I think there’s a lot of racism when it comes to it,” Reese mentioned.
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Caitlin Clark, left, of the Indiana Fever and Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky look on throughout a recreation at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on June 16, 2024, in Indianapolis. (Emilee Chinn/Getty Photographs)
Reese went on to listing loss of life threats and other people coming proper to her house as an alleged instance of a measure Clark’s followers have taken in response to their rivalry.
“People have come down to my address, followed me home, it’s come down to that,” Reese mentioned.
Reese even alleges that some followers have made AI-generated pictures of her, depicting her with out garments on, and despatched them to her relations.
“Multiple occasions, people have made AI-images of me naked. They have sent it to my family members. My family members are like uncles, sending it to me like, ‘Are you naked on Instagram?’” Reese mentioned. “It sucks having to go through that and see other players have to go through that.”
Reese’s rivalry with Clark has culminated in a number of controversial moments all through their faculty and professional careers already. There have been a number of cases through which these moments have resulted in high-profile scrutiny of Reese.
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Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark smiles as she seems to be on the workforce bench after making a go to the basket that led to a rating within the second half towards the Dallas Wings, Sept. 1, 2024, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photograph/Tony Gutierrez)
After the preliminary second through which Reese pointed to her finger within the 2023 NCAA girls’s title recreation that she mentioned “changed her life forever,” Barstool founder Dave Portnoy re-posted a video of the clip with the caption “Classless piece of s—,” on X. It is a put up that has 79.5 million views on X on the time of publication.
Portnoy levied comparable assaults at Reese all through the 2024 event and early in her WNBA profession.
Related incidents have occurred to Reese’s Sky teammates for exhausting fouls on Clark in matchups towards the Fever this season.
After committing a tough flagrant-1 foul that despatched Clark flying throughout the ground in a recreation final week, Chicago’s Diamond DeShields posted screenshots of an Instagram person leaving hate feedback on her put up, referencing a tumor she had eliminated in 2020. That 12 months, she was identified with a benign tumor on her spinal wire in 2020. She risked paralysis when she had it surgically eliminated and suffered painful tremors whereas recovering from the process.
Sky guard Chennedy Carter dedicated one of the scrutinized fouls of the WNBA season on Clark in an early June matchup, when Carter dedicated an unlawful hip test on Clark whereas she was simply standing there, knocking her to the hardwood.
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Chicago Sky ahead Angel Reese grabs a rebound towards the New York Liberty. (Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports activities)
She then responded to a flurry of criticism on social media for the foul with a put up acknowledging it: “Troll notifications blowing up. I love it,” Carter wrote on X that day.
For Reese, Thursday was not the primary time she has opened up in regards to the therapy she will get on-line from Clark’s followers. After Reese and LSU misplaced to Clark and Iowa on this 12 months’s Elite Eight within the NCAA Match, Reese cried within the press convention as she revealed what sort of issues she had been advised that 12 months.
“I’ve been through so much. I’ve seen so much. I’ve been attacked so many times. Death threats, I’ve been sexualized, I’ve been threatened. There are so many things, and I’ve stood strong every single time. I just try to stand strong for my teammates because I don’t want them to see me down and not be there for them. I’m still a human. All of this has happened since I won the national championship. I said the other day I haven’t [been] happy since then.”
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