Jemele Hill is back in the middle of the Caitlin Clark conversation, and this time the spark came from Morgan Wallen’s latest walkout.
A viral clip of Wallen heading out with Ray Lewis during a concert stop in Baltimore gave Hill the opening to revisit the backlash Clark faced earlier this year. Hill quote-tweeted the video with a blunt reminder: “This is why Caitlin Clark should have never gotten s-t for doing the same thing.” This is why Caitlin Clark should have never gotten shit for doing the same thing. https://t.co/dG4CViEnFs
The reference went straight back to May, when Clark walked out onstage with Wallen during one of his Indianapolis concerts, just hours after a season-opening loss to the Dallas Wings. That moment drew heat because of a 2021 video in which Wallen used a racial slur, and critics argued Clark should not have associated with him given the WNBA’s largely Black player base. Some fans also used the moment to pile on with criticism of her play around the same time.
Hill had already pushed back on that reaction when the controversy first broke. On her podcast, she said Clark was being singled out unfairly and pointed to other male athletes who had walked out with Wallen without drawing anything close to the same level of backlash, including Peyton Manning, Travis Kelce, Myles Garrett and Marshawn Lynch.
Lewis’ appearance in Baltimore only sharpened Hill’s point. With a Black Hall of Fame linebacker walking out alongside Wallen, there was no comparable wave of criticism, which made the standard Clark faced look even more uneven in Hill’s view.
Hill has taken heat before on this topic. She previously drew criticism for a now-deleted post saying Clark did not face the same online abuse as Black WNBA players, a claim that aged poorly after a man was arrested for allegedly stalking Clark. Even so, her defense of Clark during the Wallen fallout caught plenty of people off guard at the time.
Clark never publicly addressed the backlash in May. She kept moving, and that has remained her pattern all season. Earlier this week, she put up a historic 45-point performance against the Seattle Storm, another reminder of why she continues to be the WNBA’s biggest draw.
Hill’s latest post has already pulled in hundreds of thousands of views, a sign that the Clark-Wallen debate still has plenty of life left in it months later.
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