{"id":175693,"date":"2021-06-07T05:40:33","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T12:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/"},"modified":"2021-06-07T09:32:28","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T16:32:28","slug":"espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Fires New Betting Analyst \u2018Kelly in Vegas\u2019 for Past Homophobic Tweets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Handicapper Kelly Stewart has been sacked from her new job as a betting analyst for ESPN<\/a> because of homophobic tweets she made nine years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Kelly
Kelly Stewart claims she resorted to homophobic language in a bid to silence trolls, who targeted her for being a woman in a male-dominated world. (Image: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Known by her Twitter handle \u201cKelly in Vegas,\u201d the Kansas native was hired by the broadcaster in early May as an analyst on Daily Wager\u00a0<\/em>and other ESPN sports betting platforms. She was to start her new role sometime this month.<\/p>\n

But Kelly took to Twitter over the weekend to confirm the news and apologize for the \u201cunacceptable and hurtful\u201d language she used nearly a decade ago, and to partially deflect the blame onto Twitter trolls.<\/p>\n

Anti-Gay Slurs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cESPN has notified me they terminated my contract due to deleted tweets from 2012,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI know the words I used were unacceptable and hurtful and I am terribly sorry for this lapse in judgment, but I cannot apologize for standing up to the vicious attacks I, and so many other female personalities, endure from online trolls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Screenshots have since emerged showing four tweets posted by Stewart from March through July 2012, which repeat the same anti-gay slur.<\/p>\n

yeah, but today my timeline is full of f*gs trying 2 say I\u2019m fake. It\u2019s so funny to me. Keep taking with your 17 followers,\u201d reads one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three of these tweets appear to be responses to online abuse. Another is not so clear. In it, she laments that baseball pitcher Cliff Lee \u201cdecided\u201d to have a good game and ends with the slur used as a hashtag. However, we aren\u2019t party to the message she\u2019s responding to.<\/p>\n

\u2018Misogynistic Attacks\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t regret standing up for myself against vile, threatening, and misogynistic attacks from men who were threatened by a woman daring to make a living in the overwhelmingly male sports gambling industry,\u201d Stewart continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believed I had to stand up for myself in order to make it in this industry and I responded to their threats of violence and sexist insults with the most powerful language I could think to use.<\/p>\n

A decade later, I wish I hadn\u2019t made the decision to respond to their vitriol with my own, but I cannot change my past,\u201d she added.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stewart is a contributor to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Bleacher Report,<\/em> and Wager Talk<\/em>. She first came to the attention of the Las Vegas sports betting world in 2012 when she hit a three-team money-line parlay.<\/p>\n

She offers a proxy betting service via her website kellyinvegas.com, which allows residents of other states to enter sports betting contests in Nevada.<\/p>\n

In 2014, Stewart won the \u201cMini-Contest\u201d at Westgate\u2019s SuperContest<\/a>, the famous NFL handicapping challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Handicapper Kelly Stewart has been sacked from her new job as a betting analyst for ESPN because of homophobic tweets she made nine years ago. Known by her Twitter handle \u201cKelly in Vegas,\u201d the Kansas native was hired by the broadcaster in early May as an analyst on Daily Wager\u00a0and other ESPN sports betting platforms. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":175694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,1074],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nESPN Fires Betting Analyst \u2018Kelly in Vegas\u2019 for Past Homophobic Tweets<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kelly Stewart, AKA \u2018KellyinVegas,\u2019 sports betting analyst, fired by ESPN for homophobic tweets in 2012, blames Twitter trolls.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ESPN Fires Betting Analyst \u2018Kelly in Vegas\u2019 for Past Homophobic Tweets\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kelly Stewart, AKA \u2018KellyinVegas,\u2019 sports betting analyst, fired by ESPN for homophobic tweets in 2012, blames Twitter trolls.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-06-07T12:40:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-06-07T16:32:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kelly.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/\",\"name\":\"ESPN Fires Betting Analyst \u2018Kelly in Vegas\u2019 for Past Homophobic Tweets\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kelly.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-06-07T12:40:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-06-07T16:32:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Kelly Stewart, AKA \u2018KellyinVegas,\u2019 sports betting analyst, fired by ESPN for homophobic tweets in 2012, blames Twitter trolls.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/espn-fires-betting-analyst-kelly-in-vegas-for-past-homophobic-tweets\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kelly.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/kelly.jpg\",\"width\":1280,\"height\":720,\"caption\":\"Kelly Stewart claims she resorted to homophobic language in a bid to silence trolls, who targeted her for being a woman in a male-dominated world. 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