Angel Reese said what she wanted to say in her podcast debut on Thursday, all at the expense of Caitlin Clark fans.
In the first episode of her podcast, the WNBA Rookie of the Year contender used a segment to discuss her personal history with fans of her longtime rival, Clark.
Reese did not directly criticize Clark, but she reflected on the moment her interactions with Clark really began to ramp up. It occurred right when she made the celebratory gesture of pointing to her ring finger in Clark’s face during the final minutes of Reese’s and LSU’s NCAA title win over Clark and Iowa in the 2023 championship game.
It was a moment that Reese says “changed my life forever.” It was a moment that ignited a series of intense interactions between certain members of Clark’s passionate followers and Reese and some of her Chicago Sky teammates.
“I think it’s really just the fans, her fans, the Iowa fans, now the Indiana fans, that are really just, they ride for her, and I respect that, respectfully. But sometimes it’s very disrespectful. I think there’s a lot of racism when it comes to it,” Reese said.
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Caitlin Clark, left, of the Indiana Fever and Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky look on during a game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on June 16, 2024, in Indianapolis. (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
Reese went on to list death threats and people coming right to her home as an alleged example of a measure Clark’s fans have taken in response to their rivalry.
“People have come down to my address, followed me home, it’s come down to that,” Reese said.
Reese even alleges that some fans have made AI-generated images of her, depicting her without clothes on, and sent them to her family members.
“Multiple occasions, people have made AI-images of me naked. They have sent it to my family members. My family members are like uncles, sending it to me like, ‘Are you naked on Instagram?’” Reese said. “It sucks having to go through that and see other players have to go through that.”
Reese’s rivalry with Clark has culminated in several controversial moments throughout their college and pro careers already. There have been several instances in which those moments have resulted in high-profile scrutiny of Reese.
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Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark smiles as she looks at the team bench after making a pass to the basket that led to a score in the second half against the Dallas Wings, Sept. 1, 2024, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
After the initial moment in which Reese pointed to her finger in the 2023 NCAA women’s title game that she said “changed her life forever,” Barstool founder Dave Portnoy re-posted a video of the clip with the caption “Classless piece of s—,” on X. It’s a post that has 79.5 million views on X at the time of publication.
Portnoy levied similar attacks at Reese throughout the 2024 tournament and early in her WNBA career.
Similar incidents have happened to Reese’s Sky teammates for hard fouls on Clark in matchups against the Fever this season.
After committing a hard flagrant-1 foul that sent Clark flying across the floor in a game last week, Chicago’s Diamond DeShields posted screenshots of an Instagram user leaving hate comments on her post, referencing a tumor she had removed in 2020. That year, she was diagnosed with a benign tumor on her spinal cord in 2020. She risked paralysis when she had it surgically removed and suffered painful tremors while recovering from the procedure.
Sky guard Chennedy Carter committed one of the most scrutinized fouls of the WNBA season on Clark in an early June matchup, when Carter committed an illegal hip check on Clark while she was just standing there, knocking her to the hardwood.
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Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese grabs a rebound against the New York Liberty. (Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports)
She then responded to a flurry of criticism on social media for the foul with a post acknowledging it: “Troll notifications blowing up. I love it,” Carter wrote on X that day.
For Reese, Thursday was not the first time she has opened up about the treatment she gets online from Clark’s fans. After Reese and LSU lost to Clark and Iowa in this year’s Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament, Reese cried in the press conference as she revealed what kind of things she had been told that year.
“I’ve been through so much. I’ve seen so much. I’ve been attacked so many times. Death threats, I’ve been sexualized, I’ve been threatened. There are so many things, and I’ve stood strong every single time. I just try to stand strong for my teammates because I don’t want them to see me down and not be there for them. I’m still a human. All of this has happened since I won the national championship. I said the other day I haven’t [been] happy since then.”
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