Sports media will forever associate Mina Kimes with Mila Kunis, thanks to the ESPN host’s great sense of humor in response to an insensitive joke by a Boston radio producer.
Monday afternoon, the Kimes-Kunis connection was restated as Kimes waited for her ESPN show to start by going on TikTok and using the celebrity lookalike filter. Hilariously, Kunis showed up as Kimes’ top celebrity lookalike, and her reaction was perfect.
@espnmina Google my name and WEEI and you’ll get a lol out of this 😭 #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – espnmina
“That first one will be funny to anyone who was on sports Twitter two weeks ago,” Kimes said with a laugh after her jaw dropped in response to seeing Kunis pop up on the screen. “Google my name and WEEI and you’ll get a lol out of this,” she captioned the TikTok.
Besides TikTok deeming them celebrity look alikes, the Kimes-Kunis connection was prompted a few weeks ago when Chris Curtis, longtime sports radio producer for Boston’s WEEI, reached for a bizarre defense after appearing to make a racially insensitive joke about Kimes. With WEEI’s morning show discussing their favorite “nips,” referring to mini liquor bottles, Curtis said “I’d probably go Mina Kimes.”
In addition to describing mini liquor bottles, the term “nips” is also an ethnic slur used against people of Japanese descent. Kimes, who was born in Omaha, NE, is of Korean descent. After Curtis was called out for the apparent racial joke, the WEEI producer apologized and stated he meant to say the name of actress Mila Kunis, who is Ukrainian, not Mina Kimes, during the “nips” discussion. Curtis opted to claim his joke was intended to be sexist, not racist, as a sort of self-defense.
Upon learning that she was dragged into the Boston sports radio racial controversy, Kimes changed her Twitter avatar to a picture of Kunis. Either TikTok wouldn’t have recognized the avatar switch if it happened on their social media platform, or it has a wild sense of humor of its own and has been waiting the last few weeks for Kimes to play the celebrity lookalike game.
