In the most public reminder to date that top swimmers are becoming more mainstream, and thus can less afford to hide behind the anonymity afforded by the public indifference, a homophobic slur used by Australian superstar Stephanie Rice on her Twitter feed has cost her a major endorsement deal.
Jaguar has withdrawn its sponsorship of Rice, which amongst other things included a $100,000+ Jaguar XF that the company will take back. Rice was also scheduled to serve as an embassador for the brand at this week’s Sydney Fashion Week, which she has been pulled from as well.
Rice, who won 3 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, is currently recovering from shoulder surgery that she underwent last week.
In a seeming fit of excitement following an Australian National Rugby Team (known as the Wallabies) match over South Africa’s Springboks, Rice unleashed a “”Suck on that faggots!” Tweet towards the opposition. After receiving serious backlash, including gay ex-professional footballer Ian Roberts calling her an “idiot,” she removed the tweet and posted an apology on her official website.
So far, none of her other sponsors like Davenport, SunRice, Speedo and Telstra, from whom she collects an estimated $800,000, have made any actions further than condoning her remarks. Jaguar does not have sponsorship agreements with any other athletes at present, and said after the incident that it does not intend to redistribute Rice’s sponsorship to any other athletes.
Australian Olympic Champion diver Matt Mitcham, who is one of the world’s most high-profile gay athletes, has spoken out in support of Rice.
He told the Sydney Morning Herald that “It was offensive and very thoughtless, but being friends with her for two years, I know she is not homophobic. She meant no malice, and she has apologised for her careless comment posted in the excitement of the moment.”
Mitcham’s support is probably all that kept this situation from being a total meltdown and disaster. While he certainly does not speak for the entire gay community, I have to take his word that it was simply a reaction brought on by excitement, thoughtlessness, and immaturity rather than bigotry.
Regardless, this serves as a harsh reminder for Rice, as well as all other international-level swimmers, that along with the publicity, hype, and recognition that swimmers have long desired comes accountability and scrutiny of actions. Compounded with the power of social networks like Twitter, swimmers must take care in the fact that they are now role models and publicists in addition to the more familiar roles of athletes, and must take care that their words affect others. Along with the riches and fame of increased exposure also comes a level of social responsibility, especially in swimming-mad Australia.
Who ever she is friends with and her advisors are, they all failed her (just as her own judgment failed her when letting these words fly from her fingertips). Curious, based on recent public photos only, could this have been be tweeted in an inebriated state? I have a hard time believing that many people with lots of gay friends, in a heightened state of emotion, would yell out or tweet gay slurs in happiness over a sporting event.
Its pretty evident that common sense does not necessarily come hand in hand with Olympic success. See Phelps, Michael.
It blows my mind that she would have the great idea to blast this over twitter, I really am shocked at the lack of foresight on her part. Did she think for one second that Jaguar execs and PR people wouldn’t be a follower of her twitter account. I am only pretty sure that as soon as this was blasted on twitter her contract with Jaguar was being voided and shredded by the suits in the UK.
Lesson learned.
Well, I think that it had been a pretty heated series back and forth between the two squads.
I have status posted some pretty rambunctious things after an exciting victory by A&M over, say, Texas. But I would never use a racial or homophobic slur like this, because frankly I don’t use them in real life. So while she may be sorry that she tweeted it, it makes one wonder if this is a term she uses in normal converstions with friends. She still might not understand the full force of the expression when she uses it, but when you get to a certain level of importance and maturity, you have to cut words like these out of your vocabulary altogether.
Interesting also bringing up her state of mind at the time. The matches took place about 1 AM her local time, and as such she was probably up until the wee hours of the morning when it ended, assuming the tweet came as of the end of the live showing of the match. Didn’t see exactly when the tweet was posted, but for the “heat of the moment” argument to hold true, one would assume she was watching the match live.
This is also interesting, as if the match was ending circa 4 AM, the sportswriters (who were covering the match, or who are generally up at odd hours) and the Jaguar people (who are presumedly in the UK, where it would have been afternoon) were probably awake to catch her tweet, whileas her friends, support group, and PR people (who would have been mostly on local Aussie time) were sound asleep.
Very interesting comments, Erik. They really made me think a lot harder about the circumstances and the general failings of her support network and why it happened. If one were a grad student or researcher with a lot of time on their hands, I think the unique circumstances surrounding this would make an interesting case study.
Didn’t dive to far into it to see when she tweeted, interesting.
Being up at 4AM, I would venture to guess those who are the straight shooters and honest people in her circle were asleep. Maybe she should consider suspending her twitter account from 11PM until 5AM where ever she is. If she is going to live thee lifestyle, she might as well be smart about it..
I think we all go through a stage of over confidence and invincibility, most of us come out of it unscathed while others deal with it for a life time. Or in her case, it cost her 6 figures, a car, serious amounts of damage control and that’s it. Could have been a different mistake and far worse. I think her days of feeling invincible and without recourse for ones actions is officially over.
Lastly, I think the public appearances are nice and all, but they always seem to be a little fake and forced. According to her publicist (read on TheScreamingViking gossip column) she is going on a USA-wide, 12 gay bar tour ending with the gay pride parade in San Fran. Gay Bars? Really?? How about taking a class and a 20+ swim club, Aussie-wide tour preaching acceptance of people for who they are, the effect our words can have on people and apologizing for her letting her fans down. I say that, because she is not much of a public figure here in the states. Certainly extending that swim club tour into San Fran and going to the parade would be good too.
But what do I know, I’m just a swim coach.