‘I don’t know what will come out of my mouth’: Stephen A. Smith hints at a scorched-earth response after Jason Whitlock calls him a ‘fraud’

Stephen A. Smith is not pretending this is just another media spat. On March 24, his response to Jason Whitlock sounded like a warning shot. He said he had hours of live TV ahead of him on ESPN’s First Take, and he might decide to unload at any moment.This latest flare-up started after Whitlock went on Cam Newton’s “4th&1” podcast last week and called Smith “fraudulent,” while also taking aim at Smith’s long-told college basketball story.Whitlock’s main jab was personal and specific. He claimed Smith has misrepresented his college basketball background for years and framed it as a story that does not add up, given the realities of scholarship money at Winston-Salem State.“He’s fraudulent,” Whitlock said of Smith. “He’s lying about his college basketball career. He’s admitted he’s lying about his college basketball career.”Whitlock then mocked the version of events he says Smith has sold publicly, saying: “If I said in the media space for 20 years, telling everybody I played for (Clarence) ‘Big House’ Gaines and I got a full-ride scholarship after knocking down 17 straight three-pointers in a scrimmage on a Sunday when they played a game on Saturday.”He followed with the money point: “Anybody familiar with HBCUs, anybody familiar with Winston-Salem State, and how little money Winston-Salem State has and had back then? … They’re not giving out scholarships on the spot to anybody. It’s all a lie, and I’ve done the homework.”That’s the core of Whitlock’s claim. Smith is not just overrated. In Whitlock’s framing, Smith built part of his brand on a story that is not true.Smith’s response did not read like a standard rebuttal. He said the issue runs deeper than a back-and-forth clip war, and he framed Whitlock as someone who hides behind religion while operating differently.“It’s personal, on a whole multitude of levels, and I’ll get to all of that in a second,” Smith said. “I wanna address, first and formost, how pathetic and sick he (Whitlock) looks. … Do you see his face when he’s talking about me? You see how demonic he looks? I bring that up because he always claims to be doing god’s work.”Smith also suggested he could broaden the fight beyond himself, saying: “Maybe I should point to some of the demonic, evil, vicious stuff that he has done to me, Chris Broussard, Scoop Jackson, Jemele Hill, Michael Smith, list goes on and on.”On First Take, Smith made it clear he was in the mood to go off, even if he did not pick the moment right away. “By the way, before we start the show, I don’t know the kind of mood that I’m in,” Smith said. “I just don’t know what will come out of my mouth this morning. I’m going to be on the air for at least five live hours.” He added: “And I’m in the kind of mood where I want to exhale and check some sorry b****** . And I will be doing that today.”This is not new tension. In 2024, Smith released a 40-minute video criticizing Whitlock, and the feud has kept resurfacing. The difference now is tone. Smith is signaling he’s ready to name names and make it messier, not just louder.