Sports fans have long laughed about the notion that, depending on the angle or lighting, ESPN NFL broadcaster and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman looks like rapper turned mogul Jay-Z.
This week on Pablo Torre Finds Out, host Pablo Torre finally got Aikman on the record about the strange coincidence, and Aikman confirmed he had seen the memes.
However, it seems as if Aikman almost can’t get his head around the fact that he looks like a white version of one of America’s most famous Black men. He suggested AI might be behind the viral image in which his likeness most closely resembles that of the rapper Shawn Carter.
“Anymore, you don’t know what’s real and what’s not,” Aikman told Torre. “So I don’t know if that was actually an unedited picture of me, but it’s pretty scary.”
https://twitter.com/pablofindsout/status/1709248901792874764
“There was a meme, it still pops up from time to time, from some game,” Aikman added. “And it looks nothing like me, so I don’t know.”
It’s hard to deny the similarities in spite of the obvious differences. Aikman was born and raised in southern California. Carter, aka Jay-Z, was born in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, a world away.
Often sports media tries to stay away from the hard-hitting issues of race and class, but here Torre is digging deep (and taking advantage of his fill-in hosting duties on Pardon the Interruption) to bring the most online of sports fans’ hard-hitting truths about the roots of one of America’s most famous announcers.
[Pablo Torre Finds Out on YouTube]
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.