Amar’e Stoudemire doesn’t play in the NBA anymore, but he raised plenty of eyebrows in the NBA community on Wednesday when an interview that featured him making several homophobic comments started making the rounds. The interview was conducted by the Israeli website Walla Sport, and it included Stoudemire—who now plays professionally in Israel—talking about what he would do if he found out one of his teammates was gay.
"I’m going to shower across the street, make sure my change of clothes are around the corner," he said. "And I’m going to drive—take a different route."
The comments came just two days after Stoudemire received an award named after Martin Luther King Jr. as a result of his "efforts to promote diversity and tolerance."
Stoudemire has now apologized for saying what he said in the video. In a formal statement, he said that he was just joking around with the Walla Sport reporter who asked him about having a gay teammate and didn’t mean for his comments to be homophobic.
"I want to apologize for my offensive comments against the LGBT community," he said in the statement, according to TMZ Sports. "These remarks were taken from a larger interview where a reporter was asking me hypothetical questions, and all my answers had a comedic undertone. The answers I gave were meant to be taken as jokes & I am deeply sorry for offending anyone."
Stoudemire’s apology is likely to fall on deaf ears. While it did sound like he was joking in the video, he told the Walla Sport reporter that “there’s always a truth within a joke” at the end of his interview.
