When 17-year-old Chloe Kim won gold in the women’s snowboard halfpipe earlier this week, she also won over our hearts. Whether it’s her brutally honest tweets — yes, we too get hangry in the middle of the Olympic Games because we didn’t finish our breakfast sandwiches — or her humbling success story, Kim has made headlines around the world.
Radio host Patrick Connor didn’t hold back when he spoke of the Olympic teen on Barstool Sports’ Sirius XM talk show, “Dialed-In with Dallas Braden,” Tuesday — and he took it too far when he called her a “little hot piece of a—.”
This was only the show’s second segment.
Day two of Dialed in w @DALLASBRADEN209 & @BrodyismeFriend on @BarstoolRadio 2-4 et Showing respect to DB & bear hunters coast to coast pic.twitter.com/vLFZfbwXsn
— Patrick Connor (@pcon34) February 13, 2018
The transcript from this bit between Connor and co-hosts Brody Stevens and former MLB pitcher Dallas Braden, was released by Deadspin Tuesday night, and part of it reads:
Connor: No doubt, and in fact just to keep it on that tip, her 18th birthday is April 23, and the countdown is on baby, ’cause I got my Wooderson going. “That’s what I like about them high school girls.” [Reference to “Dazed and Confused.”]
Stevens: I love it P-Con, I’m right there with you.
Connor: She’s fine as hell! If she was 18, you wouldn’t be ashamed to say that she’s a little hot piece of a—. And she is. She is adorable. I’m a huge Chloe Kim fan.
You can read the full exchange here — and to be honest, the whole thing was pretty questionable.
Connor was fired from the San Francisco radio station KNBR, owned by Cumulus Media, on which he hosted “The Shower Hour With P-Con,” according to the New York Daily News. The site reports him as being 43.
KNBR Program director Jeremiah Crowe told Mercury News, “Be advised that Patrick Connor is no longer with Cumulus Media. Neither KNBR, nor Cumulus Media condone the comments made by Patrick Connor on his SiriusXM program.”
“Yesterday in a weird attempt to make people laugh I failed,” Connor wrote in a tweet Wednesday morning. “My comments about @chloekimsnow were more than inappropriate they were lame & gross. Im truly sorry Chloe. You’ve repped our country so brilliantly. I apologize to my colleagues & the listeners for being a total idiot.”
Yesterday in a weird attempt to make people laugh I failed. My comments about @chloekimsnow were more than inappropriate they were lame & gross. Im truly sorry Chloe. You’ve repped our country so brilliantly. I apologize to my colleagues & the listeners for being a total idiot.
— Patrick Connor (@pcon34) February 14, 2018
When a Twitter user called him out for taking a day to make a public apology, Connor replied, “Well admittedly I hadn’t given any thought to what I said until the deadspin thing [Deadspin’s article] & my first reaction was to get defensive. Then I began to think about it & came to a sincere conclusion that I was way way out of bounds & wrong.”
Well admittedly I hadn’t given any thought to what I said until the deadspin thing & my first reaction was to get defensive. Then I began to think about it & came to a sincere conclusion that I was way way out of bounds & wrong.
— Patrick Connor (@pcon34) February 14, 2018
Kim has not addressed the comments publicly.
But what about Connor’s Barstool Sports gig where he talked about Chloe Kim?
Connor reportedly still holds his gig at Barstool Sports. Founder Dave Portnoy, who called Connor’s comment “sort of stupid” on the site, also tweeted Wednesday, “Nothing is more important @barstoolsports than trying to bring humor to our fans lives. Occasionally we miss the mark. Most of the time we don’t. Regardless we won’t let advertisers, crybabies and jealous people dictate what we do. You don’t like us? Don’t listen, watch or read.”
Braden (from “Dialed-In”) addressed Connor’s comments on air Wednesday, noting that with the “magnificent” and “truly awesome opportunity” of Barstool Sports’ platform, comes a “holy responsibility.”
“We are not a gutter brand,” he said. Then later, seemingly speaking to Connor, he stated, “I’d like to think that you think of yourself as somebody who does not belong in the gutter.”
“You will clean it the f—ck up, or Day 3 will be the last day here,” he continued, saying that he and everyone at Barstool “understand[s] the severity and the seriousness of the comments made.”
In a video tweeted out Wednesday morning — after Connor’s apology — Barstool Sports named Kim “Queen” of the Olympics.
The King and Queen of the Olympics have already been named pic.twitter.com/stQrN3YLwW
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) February 14, 2018
“Like I’m gonna start a religion for this chick, I’m obsessed with her,” the commentator states. “She’s 17, so don’t go taking this all sexually and what not…she’s just f—cking awesome.”
