Dave Portnoy recently found himself on the receiving end of some antisemitic slurs during a trip to Mississippi.
Discussing the incident while appearing as a guest on CBS Sunday Morning, the Barstool founder told host Tony Dokoupil that he believes antisemitism has ballooned.
"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 said. "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 then asked Portnoy about Barstool’s success being "based on not being afraid to offend," and whether he saw a "connection between what you unleashed and what you now have to deal with?"
"No," Portnoy responded. "Because I think Barstool, and myself, has always had a pretty good moral compass. So, 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."
According to Yahoo, last week, 20-year-old Patrick McClintock was identified by the police as the man who hurled coins and shouted antisemitic slurs at Portnoy outside of a Mississippi pizza shop, where Portnoy was shooting content. McClintock was later charged with disturbing the peace.
Tim Miller — a political consultant who was once a Republican, now identifies as an Independent, and is staunchly anti-Donald Trump — reacted to Portnoy’s CBS appearance.
"Let’s just be honest here this is ridiculous. Nobody’s ever made a joke that hurt anyone’s feelings at barstool?" Miller wrote in a post on X.
Other X users weighed in on the conversation, with many sharing the clip of Portnoy on CBS, citing some of the crazier things he's said and done, including wishing missiles would hit Greta Thunberg's aid flotillas bound for Gaza, making rape jokes, and being serially accused of sexual assault.
"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 wrote: "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 user added: "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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