BOSSIP Joins 'The Talk' To Discuss Angel Reese Double Standard

Wednesday BOSSIP Sr. Content Director Janeé Bolden joined CBS’ The Talk for an #InsiderBuzz segment about LSU’s recent win at the NCAA women’s basketball championship and criticism of their star player Angel Reese.

Source: CBS / The Talk

“I absolutely do think that women athletes are held to a different standard,” Janeé told The Talk’s audience after Amanda Kloots asked about I also think there’s a whole other double standard going on and that’s a racial one. I think it’s positively unfair that you have Caitlin Clark doing something people are celebrating her for and saying that’s just her competitive nature and then there’s all this backlash when Angel Reese did the exact same thing. People want her to be ladylike and sportsman-like but she won a National Championship. It’s an incredible achievement. We should be celebrating her. The best part of this is people are talking about women’s basketball but I also think it’s time we just are honest with ourselves about the double standard that we have in our society when it comes to gender and race.”

“As someone who played sports as a kid I love that we’re talking about women,” guest co-host Jamie Yuccas agreed. “I love that people know Angel’s name. I think this type of thing, even the trash-talking, I do think elevates the game, because it makes it fun. I thought that women were way more fun to watch this year.”

“I don’t think this is unique though to just women’s sports,” Akbar Gbaja-Biamila said, adding his perspective as a former college and pro-athlete. “I think it also carries over into the men’s sport as well. I think it really falls on the racial side. When you look at this, you think about guys who are notorious trash talkers like Terrell Owens and you think about Deion Sanders and Muhammad Ali — not so much now because people love Ali, but in the 60s and 70s he was hated. I think what it is, is there is the intimidation factor, when you look at black athletes coming into these sports that were not traditionally included for African American athletes, they came in they dominated and it was just like, ‘hey there’s an intimidation factor you need to reduce your so you need to lower yourself.'”

“I know for me personally, I’ve played with players who like, white athletes, I think about my quarterback when I was with the Chargers, Philip Rivers, a notorious trash talker,” Gbaja-Biamila continued. “They said ‘He’s got passion’ right? ‘He’s got a lot of passion when he plays,’ but then you take that same characteristic and you give it to a black athlete, now all of a sudden he’s ‘braggadocious,’ they don’t like him, they want to vilify him. It happened to Odell Beckham. I talked to Odell Beckham about this and his dancing and celebrating. They’re just looked at differently and I think a lot of that has to do with intimidation.”

“I want to shout out Angel though,” co-host Jerry O’Connell continued. “Angel is unapologetic here and I think we’re seeing the beginning of her star just shooting up. I really applaud her because you have to be brave to be unapologetic up there so shout out to you Angel.”

“Yeah I love the Bayou Barbie by way of Baltimore,” Sheryl Underwood added. “She reminds me of FloJo. I like that style, like that swag and everything, and it’s OK to have that and I think that every sportscaster that criticized her needs to apologize and accept the fact that they had some bias in this situation because that hand thing, really John Cena is where it came from.”

Sheryl added that the hand motion that both Clark and Reese have been called out about originated from John Cena doing it while wrestling.

“People need to accept that they have some type of bias and when it’s being used that way,” Underwood continued. “I gotta shout out Stephen A Smith, Shaq, LeBron, Shannon, everybody that stood up for Angel, because you don’t want to feel like you’re alone when you’re being attacked.”

You can watch the full segment HERE.

BOSSIP has had a great relationship with the CBS daytime show since 2019, and Janeé recently caught up with Akbar Gbaja-Biamila and Sheryl Underwood in New York last month while the hosts were on a press run. While comedy may be Sheryl’s bread and butter, we observed that Gbaja-Biamila has a very healthy sense of humor and asked him about it.

“Being next to the Queen of Comedy, it is hard to do but I stay in my lane,” Gbaja-Biamila told BOSSIP. “I know who I am, so I have more dad joke stuff and I’m very quick and reactive, but we do have a good time. My lane is react in the moment but nobody is quicker than Sheryl. She’s so quick and will come up with a whole bit. She can take it to another level.”

“You know what’s wild about it?” Underwood asked, before adding her two cents to the discussion. “Because I’ve been there since season 2 and it is daytime, so sometime I may think something in my head and I’ll think that’s not sufficient for work – but sometimes I can get one off, or sometimes Akbar gets one off and whoever gets the joke we go with it and we go to break because everybody is funny.”

We love that the show can go from serious discussions to laughter and we can’t wait to join ‘The Talk’ again.

‘The Talk’ airs Monday-Friday on CBS. Check your local listings for timing.