People widely regard ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith as the face of the channel because of his sharp and insightful analysis. He hosts “First Take,” but prior to that, he hosted “The Stephen A. Smith Show” on ESPN Radio from 2005 to 2008.
In a recent interview, he revealed that he retired his mother after signing a contract with the station. Speaking on “Hotboxin’ With Mike Tyson” podcast, Smith said he retired his mother when he signed a $1.3 million annual contract with ESPN to receive his own show called “Quite Frankly”.
Prior to retiring her, she was working at the Police Athletic League (PAL). This was after she had retired as a registered nurse working at Queens General Hospital in New York, NY, according to Afro Tech. Working with PAL was to help her fund her yearly vacations because she did not have additional earnings outside of her pension and savings.
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“My proudest moment to this day was that I drove straight home, and I put it in my book straight shooter, I drove straight from Manhattan to Queens, New York. I walked right in that PAL and I grabbed her by the arm and I said ‘Let’s go,’” Smith expressed on the podcast.
“I looked at her boss, and I said ‘My mother’s not coming back,’ and I drove her back home three blocks away, and she was like ‘What’s going on?’ and I told her I signed this contract’… I said ‘The mortgage is paid.’ I said ‘and your vacation,’ and I handed her two tickets to a trip to Europe, and I said, ‘You ain’t got to work no more. Go and enjoy yourself. It’s my turn.’ And that to this day is the proudest moment of my life. There’s no other moment.”
Smith’s mother died in 2017. On the podcast, Smith mentioned that the rewards for his mother could have included her dream home but he couldn’t afford it because his contract was not sufficient for that at the time. In 2019, he signed a five-year, $60 million contract, according to the New York Post.
“To watch my mother struggle the way that she did all of those years trying to take care of us because my father was real negligent and didn’t do his part, to see her go through what she went through and for me to have that moment,” he stated.
“The only thing that would have been better was 2019 because that’s when I really did get the contract. That contract was excessively more than the one that I signed back in 2005. That contract would have enabled me to buy her a dream house in St. Thomas you know and take care of everything.”
Today, ESPN has reportedly offered Smith a five-year deal worth $18 million per year, which would make the host of First Take one of the highest-paid on the network.
