Colin Kaepernick's Birth Mom Criticizes Him for Not Standing During National Anthem

Colin Kaepernick’s birth mom Heidi Russo used Twitter to criticize his decision not to stand during the national anthem.

August 30, 2016

Not Available Lead — Image via Complex Original
Complex Original

Just about everyone has an opinion on Colin Kaepernick's decision not to stand during the national anthem prior to a Packers/49ers game in San Francisco on Friday night. And that includes his birth mother Heidi Russo, who gave birth to the future NFL quarterback at the age of 19 back in 1987 before giving him up for adoption. Kaepernick and Russo don't have much of a relationship—this Yahoo! Sports piece gives a good overview of how Russo has monitored Kaepernick's career from afar—but that didn't stop Russo from sharing her thoughts on what Kaepernick did while criticizing him in the process.

On Sunday, Russo—who points out that she is the "Birthmom of Colin" in her Twitter bio—used the social media site to send tweets to the 49ers QB. She offered up some unsolicited hashtagged advice to Kaepernick while suggesting that he brought "shame" to his country and his family through his actions:

Her tweets flew mostly under the radar for about a day, but once people started to realize that Russo had directed the tweets at Kaepernick, she got slammed by many people for doing it:

That prompted Russo to respond by sending out a blanket statement to the people who had gathered in her mentions:

She also spent most of the last three days addressing individual Twitter users who caught her attention by sending tweets to her. Here are just a few examples:

And most recently, she posted this early Tuesday afternoon:

Kaepernick hasn't responded to Russo, and at this point, we wouldn't expect him to. It's unlikely that the public scolding she gave him will bring the two any closer together.