Before he became Complex's most entertaining sports media personality, Shannon Sharpe had to learn to embrace his authentic self.
In a new interview with Complex, Sharpe recalled a time when he met with several speech therapists and pathologists in an effort to change his idiolect before realizing he was trying to move away from who he really is.
"I went to so many speech therapists and pathologists trying to change the way I talk. And then I just realized that's not who I am," Sharpe said. "The listening audience, the viewing audience is never gonna believe this is who I am. They've heard me speak enough to know what I sound like and how I should sound. And once I went back to being who I was, my authentic self, it seemingly took off for me from there."
On an episode of Sharpe's Club Shay Shay podcast last month, Cordae—who dealt with a speech disorder as a child—echoed a similar sentiment about owning your uniqueness when asked to provide some words of encouragement to those who find themselves in a similar circumstance.
"Nobody can be Shannon Sharpe better than Shannon Sharpe. Nobody can be Cordae better than Cordae," the rapper said. "So that’s what I would tell that kid. Just be yourself. Embrace what it is. Ain’t nothing wrong with you wanting some self-improvement. If you wanna take a speech class, I’m not saying that you should or you have to, but whatever you want to do. Nobody can be you better than you so just embrace yourself, embrace your imperfections, embrace your flaws, and accept it and flourish in it."
Sharpe told Complex he considers Charles Barkley to be a personal measuring stick, based on his ability to successfully transition from a professional basketball career to an analyst.
"Charles Barkley, who's kind of the measuring stick, especially for myself—Charles Barkley is the one that gave me a belief that I could do it," he shared. "He's from rural Alabama. I'm from rural South Georgia. We both have a colloquial dialect, and I was like, ‘Man, if Charles can do this being from Alabama, talking the way he talked, why can't I do this? Why can’t I be authentic Shannon Sharpe and be good at this?’"
Sharpe can now be seen two days a week on ESPN's First Take. After seven years on FS1's Undisputed, Shannon parted ways with Skip Bayless earlier this year, a departure that was likely fueled by an on-air confrontation where the eight-time Pro Bowler felt disrespected.
"[Skip] felt that he could go over the top in that situation," Sharpe told Stephen A. Smith in September. "Whatever the relationship is, once one partner has no respect for the other, the other partner then in turn loses respect for said partner, then I think it is only a matter of time because I felt in that moment he had lost all respect for me."
