Openly gay former NBA star John Amaechi
says Kobe Bryant is no more homophobic than the average person.
After he received a technical foul from
referee Bennie Adams during a nationally televised game on Tuesday,
Bryant yelled “Bennie … fucking faggot.” Bryant
has apologized for his remark, and the NBA fined him $100,000 for the
outburst.
Amaechi, who came out gay in 2007 after
retiring from the sport, told
USA
Today
that he wasn't surprised by the comments.
“I'm surprised that people are
surprised,” Amaechi said. “This is common language when I
played. It was an everyday word that I heard. I haven't seen
anything new put in place [by the NBA) to tackle homophobia. There's
no reason for it to somehow get better.”
While Amaechi said he wasn't buying
Bryant's explanation not to take his words literally – “I doubt
very much when he said that that he thought Bennie was a pile of
sticks” – he added that he did not believe Bryant was any more
homophobic that the average person.
“I don't think he is any more
homophobic than the average person, or most certainly your average
person in sports. When you're in the spotlight, when a camera is
trained on your face on a daily basis, you don't have the luxury of
losing control. When you do, I like to see people be a little more
contrite than that.”