Stephen A. Smith made a public on-air apology to Kyrie Irving after watching Dr. Anthony Fauci testify on Capitol Hill, turning COVID vaccine news back to the dispute over Irving’s refusal to comply with vaccination rules. Smith said he was thinking of Irving first when he watched the hearing on the Stephen A. Smith Show on Sirius XM.
“I watched Dr. Fauci on Capitol Hill yesterday and the person I thought about most was Kyrie Irving,” Smith said. He added that “there’s several people that we all owe apologies to, and I’ll put myself at the front of the list, but none more so than the apology that I owe to Kyrie Irving.”
Kyrie Irving’s 35 games
During the 2021-22 NBA season, Irving sat out 35 games because of New York state’s vaccine mandate. Smith said Irving signed a $34.9 million contract for that season and was forced to give up just over 1% of his salary for each game he missed, a loss of roughly $381,000 per game. Irving did not play any games at Barclays Center that season under the rule.
The mandate later changed in March 2022, when Eric Adams created an athlete/performer exemption that lifted the vaccine rule. That shift explains why Smith returned to the issue now: the hearing pushed him to revisit the cost Irving absorbed while the policy was still in place.
Smith’s change of view
Smith said Irving “may have been more right than we have given him credit for and unquestionably was more vilified than he deserved. And ladies and gentleman, it starts with me.” He also said, “Hindsight-wise it didn’t make him stubborn or selfish. It made him brave for his willingness to stand up and say ‘Nah, I’m not doing that,’” drawing a direct line from his earlier criticism to his new apology.
He tied that change to his own experience as well, saying he survived a brush with COVID that landed him in the hospital on New Year’s Eve in 2022. In the same monologue, Smith said Dr. Fauci pleaded the Fifth 111 times during the Capitol Hill testimony and added, “Doesn’t mean that Dr. Fauci was totally wrong just because he pleaded the Fifth 111 times. It means there’s ground for suspicion.”
Aaron Rodgers and others
Smith broadened the apology beyond Irving and named Aaron Rodgers, Novak Djokovic, Bryson Dechambeau and Connor McGregor as people he believes also deserve apologies for their COVID-19 vaccine stance. That puts Irving’s case in a wider category of athletes and public figures who faced criticism during the pandemic over vaccination choices.
For Irving, the practical fallout is already set by the numbers Smith cited: 35 games lost, a $34.9 million contract, and a salary hit tied to each missed game. The remaining question is simpler and still open in the story itself: how Irving responds to Smith’s apology.
