The author, a native Detroiter, formerly worked for The Detroit News and New York Daily News and as head writer for ESPN's Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith. He currently resides in New York. This column first appeared on his Substack, "Michael James Writes." To subscribe to it click here.
By Michael James
I'm not sure how much longer you'll be seeing me here on Facebook, but even the prospect of losing access to a worldwide voice that I've had for 17 years would not make me want to trade places today with a man who is worth $100 million dollars.
The person I'm talking about is my long-estranged, one-time very close friend - the face of worldwide leader ESPN and nascent wanna-be 2028 presidential hopeful - Stephen A. Smith.
Stephen A. Smith
Now, why, exactly, you ask, would I not want to be a guy who SHOULD be sitting on top of the world after recently signing a five-year deal worth $20 million dollars annually, who is at the pinnacle of a profession where he literally cannot ascend any higher, and has on speed dial some of the world's most famous people - many of whom would leap in an instant to join him on his national daily sports television show at a moment's notice?
Because Stephen A. Smith, who was as close to me as any brother could be for almost 20 years, despite his fame and prodigious wealth, has reached what I think is one of the worst destinations any human being can ever reach in a lifetime:
He has EVERYTHING - almost - that life has to offer and that money can buy.
So what is missing?
If you ask me, as someone who STILL knows him as well as anyone - even after spending pretty much the past decades and a half apart for the crime of telling him that his burgeoning arrogance would be his downfall - I don't think Stevie No Wonder, as I once called him, has a real and true friend in the world.
Why would I say a thing like this?
Because in the past several months, I have witnessed Steve make a series of ever-larger missteps that I don't think he makes if he has an honest and forthright FRIEND in his orbit who wants nothing more from him than for him to succeed.
This is what I was to him almost from the moment we met as high school writers together at The New York Daily News back in 1993.
It's who I was when I was promoted to an NBA job covering the New Jersey Nets in 1995 - a position that many, including S.A.S. himself - was certain would be his.
It's who I was in the mid-2000s when he rescued me from the unemployment line and allowed me to become head writer for his eponymous Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith ESPN 2 TV show.
It's who I was to him on many early morning jaunts to White Castle in Queens where he ferried me in the wee hours to talk about his show and himself, knowing that I alone was likely to be awake and ready to go when he unexpectedly called from his car outside my apartment in those quiet hours.
It's who I remained - still - even after he ended our friendship in 2009 when I confessed to him after much soul-searching that I felt his arrogance and narcissism was leading him to mistreat, and at times, become a bully to myself and others.
It's who I've remained, watching from afar, as he grew to be a force in sports journalism, gradually publicly displaying that Godfather-style demeanor which led to him threatening NBA superstar Kevin Durant on national television several years back.
I cringed then, as I did recently, when I saw him relentlessly attacking LeBron James - one of the most squeaky clean professional athletes of all time - for the crime of using his influence to do what powerful White men have ALWAYS done: giving his son a head start in the world.
I cringed then, as I did when I saw Holy Roller Christian Crusader journalist, Jason Whitlock, trying to tear down Stephen's reputation as a straight shooter by uncovering untruths that are easily verifiable in his ill-timed autobiography, Straight Shooter: A Memoir of First Takes And Second Chances.
I cringed again when I saw that Stephen A. Smith somehow convinced himself that after Donald Trump had lowered the bar for what it takes to be president of the United States that HE, a daily sports commentator - even one of the best - felt qualified to become the most powerful man in the world with virtually no experience at running, well, anything.
I SCREAMED at my computer when I saw his plans to begin a series of Trump-like rallies called Three Americans, alongside former Fox News superstar Bill O'Reilly and former CNN star Chris Cuomo - two men who were disgraced from those lofty perches for sexual misbehavior towards female colleagues and associates.
Who in the hell, I wondered, would ALLOW their famous and powerful friend to test his viability as a candidate for the 2028 presidential election alongside O'Reilly, who reportedly PAID A STAGGERING $45 million dollars to settle at least SIX sexual harassment cases?
While O'Reilly has slammed the reported monetary figures, the fact remains that he did pay MILLIONS - and that he DOES have a problem preying on women who don't necessarily want old man balls in their faces.
Tea-bagging aside, what friend in Stephen A. Smith's orbit would not beg him to not tie his wagon to Cuomo, who sent unwanted salacious texts to a female colleague after seeing her in a spangled bikini on social media - and possibly cost her a job when she refused his advances?
What FRIEND could Steve possibly have had who would not have reminded him that Chris Cuomo was also found to have tried to help his brother, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, navigate out of his own sexual harassment case?
What kind of judgment did this show for my now fabulously-wealthy ex-friend, who now wants to live someday in The White House?
And now, just as those firestorms have begun to die out, comes word that Smith's First Take co-star several days a week, 56-year-old Hall of Fame NFL star, Shannon Sharpe - a man he rescued from Fox Sports amid a fallout with Skip Bayless and some scandalous sex-related behavior - is now being sued for rape and sexual assault by a woman Sharpe began a sexual relationship with when she was just 19 years old.
Folks, while it MUST be clarified that Stephen A. Smith's has never been accused of sexual impropriety with any woman, the fact is that who your friends are reflects mightily on who YOU are.
So now, we have Stephen A. Smith, who SHOULD be enjoying the initial spoils of those first ridiculous checks that have more zeros attached than any group of people could hope to earn in a lifetime, trying to do something that even all the money in the world can't buy:
Stephen A. Smith is trying, desperately hoping, that he does not find himself yet again tethered to another famous wealthy man who has verifiably been accused of sexual aggression and violence against a woman who stood very little chance to resist his power.
If you don't believe there was an imbalance of power between Sharpe and a virtual child barely over the legal age of consent in some US states, you must listen to the horrific tape of their alleged conversation where Shannon Sharpe - who is old enough to be this girl's grandfather, threatens her with sexual violence - and tells her that it is INEVITABLE.
What's worse? Sharpe was on television TODAY with Stephen A. Smith - his alleged misdeeds not deemed indefensible enough for the honchos at parent company, Disney, to pull his disgraceful ass off the air to IMMEDIATE effect.
I don't know about you, but if this does not make CLEAR that the old boy's network who owns and operates Disney, ABC television, ESPN, and more, DOES NOT care about the safety of women, NOTHING will.
See, when you break it down, there's no doubt there are parts of the rape allegations that we don't know about Shannon Sharpe and his accuser. Thing is, the details that we DO know - a man nearly 40 years this child's senior dominating her, threatening her, naming her even after she filed rape charges as a Jane Doe? - ALL OF THIS WAS ENOUGH FOR DISNEY TO PUT SHANNON SHArPE ON ICE.
Yet, they did not. Sharpe was back on the Disney-owned airwaves, shucking and jiving as if he doesn't have a care in the world.
For my money - because he played himself so badly with an ill-advised public statement which gave us much more insight into how he operates behind closed doors than we might have otherwise known - I predict he'll quietly pay upwards of $25 million to solve and un-winnable case and the whole thing will go away.
In speaking of Sharpe on his YouTube show hours after the news broke, Stephen A. Smith ALMOST said all the right things when it came to the case of Sharpe, who, days earlier, was poised to sign a $100 million dollar deal to match Smith's.
Steve admitted he didn't know the details, but that he hoped, as with a similar dropped rape case against his friend, rapper Jay Z, the allegations weren't true. He said that even as the executive producer of First Take, which he shares the screen with Sharpe every Monday and Tuesday, that it was not HIS decision what happens with Sharpe as the case plays out.
And this is where, if Stephen A. Smith truly had a friend, he might have made a different choice.
See, no matter what the details of the case actually are, Stephen A. Smith DID speak with Sharpe and he DID hear the tape released by the accuser's attorney, Tony Buzbee, where Sharpe appears to threaten a then 19 year old virtual child by saying:
"When I see you, I'm going to choke the shit out of you!"
After a long, terrifying silence, where you got the sense there was nothing this young girl could have done that would appease Sharpe, she said, "I don't want to be choked," to which he responded, "YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHOICE IN THE MATTER."
After hearing that chilling alleged Sharpe comment, someone, as a friend - even though the higher-up Disney executives own the rights to make a final decision - should have impressed upon Stephen A. Smith that there is no scenario, no world, no instance, in which it is acceptable for ANY "man" to make such a threat against a helpless, traumatized, defenseless, powerless, barely-of-age woman.
The RIGHT AND ONLY decision to make in this case, SHOULD have been made by Stephen A. Smith - a man raised by a beloved mother in a house full of sisters in Hollis, Queens.
That decision should have been to tell Shannon Sharpe that he had no choice but to ask him to take a hiatus until the allegations of this young woman - who filed suit as a Jane Doe, only to be named publicly by Sharpe himself - could be fully investigated and, hopefully, fully exonerated.
But that is not what happened, folks.
Why not?
Because there is nobody in Stephen A. Smith's universe like me, a friend - even when Stevie No Wonder no longer wanted him around - who would have done almost anything to protect Stephen A. Smith from his biggest enemy:
Himself.
