If you do a quick search for ESPN First Take host Cari Champion's name on Twitter on any given day, you'll no doubt come across quite a few inappropriate tweets aimed in her direction. From men asking her out on dates to First Take viewers asking her not to share her opinions on the show, she's subjected to disrespect on a variety of different levels on a daily basis. But yesterday, comedian Artie Lange went above and beyond the usual levels of disrespect by sending Champion a series of tweets that were racist, completely inappropriate, and downright disgusting.
We have included the tweets that Lange sent out about Champion—which, for the record, have not been deleted yet—below. Before you read them, we should warn you that they are very disturbing and definitely not SFW. But rather than us telling you about how disturbing they are, we wanted to present them to you in their full, unedited form. Take a look:
As of right now, Champion has not responded to Lange's tweets. But her close friend and ESPN co-worker Jemele Hill has taken to Twitter to share her thoughts on the tweets. She wrote this yesterday:
And she followed that tweet up with this earlier today:
As of this morning, an #iSupportCari hashtag has also started to circulate on Twitter. We have included a bunch of tweets featuring the hashtag and reactions to what Lange said below. Scroll down past the latest updates to see them.
Lange is yet to respond to the #iSupportCari campaign or issue any sort of apology, but we will be sure to keep you updated on this story as it develops.
UPDATE:
ESPN has issued a statement concerning Lange's comments. Here it is:
"His comments were reprehensible and no one should be subjected to such hateful language. They objectify and demean one of our valued employees under the thin guise of 'comedy' and are offensive to all of us. We will not dignify them with any other comment."
UPDATE 2:
Artie Lange just tried to defend the tweets that he sent out yesterday with several more tweets. You can read them here: