Paul Pierce on ESPN firing: “what did I do wrong?”

Paul Pierce was a guest on the I Am Athlete podcast this week, and one of the topics he talked about was his firing from ESPN two years ago.

In April of 2021, Pierce posted an Instagram Live video of himself drinking and smoking with dancers in the background. ESPN parted with him days later, and at the time, it was thought that Pierce posting the video himself is what spurred the company into letting him go.

On the I Am Athlete podcast, Pierce talked about being fired (on his day off) and wondered what he did wrong.

https://twitter.com/IAMATHLETEpod/status/1645458851435778049?s=20

Here’s the transcript of that part.

“I got fired for what? I got fired for having some entertainment. I’m playing cards, [it’s] my boy’s birthday, there’s girls dancing, and we’re blowing some trees. What did I do wrong?”

Pierce also talked about getting a call from ESPN management about the video.

“She’s like ‘yeah, we’re doing an investigation. Could you tell us what happened?’ And I’m like ‘you didn’t see it?’ I was just hanging out, playing cards. It wasn’t my house. It was self-explanatory, you know what I’m sayin? There were some girls dancing, and I had some OG. It’s legal. I didn’t do nothing illegal. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s Disney, and they have a morals clause, and they just said it was immoral.”

I don’t want to “both sides” the Pierce video, but I do get it from both sides. The video didn’t feature Pierce doing anything illegal, but it was probably a bridge too far for the Disney-owned ESPN, especially considering he posted it himself.