Stephen A. Smith checks Cam Newton for Jason Whitlock interview

Cam Newton recently made an interesting media career decision, by welcoming Stephen A. Smith’s arch nemesis Jason Whitlock onto his podcast.

Whitlock joined Newton’s 4th & 1 YouTube channel last week for a lengthy interview that ultimately spent no shortage of time on Smith. And once Newton opened the door for Whitlock to talk about Smith, it was open season. Whitlock repeated many of the same claims about Smith he’s made in the past, alleging the First Take host is a fraud who lies about his college basketball career and many of the stories he tells about growing up in Queens.

Newton, who works with Smith on First Take, gave Whitlock the space to rail on his ESPN colleague without much pushback.

Monday morning on First Take, Smith vowed to respond at some point during the day. And the response ultimately came on his YouTube channel, where Smith fired back at Whitlock with insults that rivaled his viral takedown from two years ago. This time, Smith even set up a presumably fake GoFundMe page for Whitlock, accusing him of being desperate for attention, clicks and money.

Stephen a smith with the subtle warning to cam newton for bringing his name up to Jason Whitlock and allowing Whitlock to call him a fraud without pushing back pic.twitter.com/LfRH92LFxL

— joebuddenclips/fanpage (@Thechat101) March 23, 2026

But when he was done firing back at Whitlock, Smith also addressed Newton. Smith didn’t seem blindsided by the interview, but he did call Newton out for not pushing back or questioning his nemesis.

“Cam Newton, next time, my brother, cause you know I love you, you gonna interview somebody and bring me up? Don’t just sit there and let them talk sh*t. Ask questions,” Smith said. “Let them prove it. I’m a fraud? How? What facts do you have? I’m sitting there doing an interview with Graham Bensinger the other day and I talked about how growing up as a teenager, I saw a few people get murdered…I’m lying about that according to Jason Whitlock, like he was in Hollis Queens, New York 40-plus years ago. How would he know? I’m a fraud, how do you know? I didn’t write my own book, how do you know? If you’re gonna bring me up and you’re somebody that’s in my inner circle and you talk to me, grill them. Don’t just let them talk smack.”

Smith directed his audience to go check out the full interview, crediting Newton for doing a great job, aside from letting Whitlock call the First Take host a fraud. Smith also said he will be joining Newton’s YouTube channel very soon.

“I love that brother,” Smith said of Newton. “I’ll bet you he’ll have better questions for me than he did for Jason Whitlock.”

It is interesting that Whitlock spends so much time discrediting Smith’s basketball career as a way of proving he’s a fraud. Smith famously averaged 1.5 points per game in one season at Winston-Salem State. It’s not really an accolade he uses to build his brand.