Stephen A. Smith appears to respond to Michelle Beadle: ‘That’s how desperate they’ve become’

Michelle Beadle has repeatedly made it clear she loathes Stephen A. Smith, and he doesn’t seem to care.

Last week, Smith endorsed an app called Solitaire Cash, owned by Papaya Gaming. The endorsement came after Smith was ridiculed for playing solitaire while attending an NBA Finals game in June. And while Beadle already has axe to grind with Smith after he took her SiriusXM timeslot earlier this year, she joined many in ripping the First Take host for taking money from what she described as a “fraudulent crap business” in Papaya Gaming.

“Honestly, I’m not a religious person, but I pray for the downfall,” Beadle ranted on a recent episode of her new podcast with Cody Decker. “It’s gross, man, you gotta have principles in this thing.”

During his Friday afternoon show on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, Smith avoided naming Beadle. But he veered into a rant that appeared to be an obvious response to her loud criticisms a day earlier.

“I hear people talking about me on SiriusXM and who they would have preferred and who they would have wanted or whatever. I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Smith said. “I’ve been blessed and fortunate that when I’m doing stuff in this industry, I win.”

“You got some people that were in this business and they talk smack now cause they can’t get a job in the business cause they didn’t do a good enough job when they were in the business so now they gotta talk smack and their reputation is they’re talking to people. Well, what you got going on? It’s all of that that comes with it, because somewhere along the way, they didn’t do what it took to resonate continuously. And that’s why they’re on the outside looking in… they don’t have a job in the industry. Don’t think they don’t want one. They do. They just didn’t know how to act, and they didn’t know how to be productive enough to keep a job.”

“Some of these podcasts, some of the stuff that you see them saying, they ain’t even talking about things, they are talking about people because they don’t have to do real work. They can find a way to get clicks and make money that way cause they can’t make money any way else. Those people, you let them keep talking and you feel bad for them from time to time cause that’s how desperate they’ve become. And they know who they are. And so do you.”

The “they” Smith was referring to clearly seemed to be Michelle Beadle. Beadle doesn’t like Smith very much. She didn’t like him when they were colleagues at ESPN. She doesn’t like the way Smith has attacked Max Kellerman in recent years. She doesn’t like that he took her SiriusXM Radio show. She doesn’t like Smith’s NBA coverage, and she definitely doesn’t like his new solitaire app. And while Smith cares enough to respond, he took the criticism and used it as an opportunity to gloat.