Contrary to popular belief, Stephen A. Smith has never been married. Despite being 55 years old and a father of two, Smith has never tied the knot.
As he opened the latest episode of The Stephen A. Smith Show with a question, the podcast host wasn’t interested in talking about sports; rather, he was looking to talk about the sanctity of marriage. Now, this shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise; Smith usually uses his podcast medium to talk about subjects he wouldn’t normally broach on ESPN’s airwaves. He’s not going to debate Chris “Mad Dog” Russo or JJ Redick about marriage on First Take, though that would likely make for entertaining television.
Before delving more into the topic, Smith offered his perspective, saying that he hopes to be married someday. Now, you’re probably asking yourself where Smith is going with this, and for one reason or another, he decided to weigh in on Kevin Costner’s bitter divorce from the actor’s estranged wife, Christine Baumgartner.
As only he could, Smith described Costner as the star of Draft Day instead of some of the critically acclaimed films that the 68-year-old actor is known for. To his credit, Smith did mention Yellowstone and the movie Costner was in with the late Whitney Houston— The Bodyguard. But no Dances with Wolves or Field of Dreams?
“He’s in the news for the wrong reasons, and this isn’t the first time he’s been in the news for the wrong reasons,” Smith said of Costner. “Years ago in 1994, his divorce cost him $80… but he’s in the news today because it says, ‘Kevin Costner estranged wife wants blasts inappropriate $52,000 child support payment proposal.’ $52,000! $52,000 a month! That’s what she’s been granted. She said it ain’t enough!”
Smith was reading this from a TMZ piece, which includes the following details:
Christine claims Kevin spends $240,000 a month on himself and the kids when they’re with him … a huge contrast to the $51,940 he’s expecting her to need to take care of the kids when they’re with her.
Kevin’s estranged wife says the almost $52K simply isn’t enough to provide for the kiddos … pointing out it’s well below the $65,000 per month she says Kevin was getting for renting out a guest house at his $100 million beachfront compound, where the family lived together.
Before going on a long-winded rant, Smith said that he believes in the sanctity of marriage, but he posed this question, “Is it time to start asking the question as to what is the incentive of marriage? Is it for money, or is it for love?”
He then spent two minutes discussing a multitude of celebrity divorces before saying he wasn’t taking sides but just wanted to have a discussion on the matter.
“We got to stop acting like there’s people out here —men and women by the way— who are scared to walk down that aisle because, ‘Oh my lord. I mean, I don’t know if I could be monogamous,'” Smith mockingly said. “No, that’s not it! That’s not it!”
“We don’t know in some of these cases whether infidelity was a part of the equation or not. It is entirely possible that people could’ve been completely loyal. It’s entirely possible that people could’ve been all into their significant other before things went awry. And we got courts ordering folks to hand out tens of millions if not billions of dollars. Billions. I mean, is anybody going to say anything about this?”
Smith is saying something about it. And he got pretty heated doing so.
“In this country, we talk about marriage,” Smith said. “But every time you turn around, it’s a financial transaction. And it’s getting to the point where prenups ain’t safe because you got people contesting prenups… I mean what the hell is going on y’all? I looked at Kevin Costner and I wanted to cry.”
Smith said he wasn’t looking out for Costner’s wallet, but then claimed the 68-year-old actor isn’t getting any younger and doesn’t have any projects knocking at the door.
“This ain’t no gender issue right here. This country that we living in, it’s taking money every chance we give it to take the money,” he said.
Tell us how you really feel, Stephen A. And after that rant, he’s probably not any closer to tying the knot than he was before.