UPDATE: Embattled Boston sports radio producer Chris Curtis apologized to Mina Kimes of ESPN on Thursday morning for his “sophomoric and sexist” comments and announced he would be suspended by WEEI for a week.
“I want to apologize to Mina Kimes. I want to apologize for the stupid, lame attempt at a joke…There’s really no other way to put it. It was dumb and it was silly,” he said.
PREVIOUS: One month after a Boston sports radio personality was suspended for “insensitive” comments, another finds himself in hot water.
Longtime WEEI producer Chris Curtis is on the hot seat for his racist/sexist comment about ESPN’s NFL analyst Mina Kimes.
During a bit on the radio station’s “Greg Hill Show,” the discussion turned to favorite “nips,” or mini-whiskeys, like Skrewball, Dr. McGillicuddy’s, and Fireball.
But “nip” is also a slur for people of Japanese descent that was common during World War II. Curtis couldn’t help himself on the air.
“Oh, I’d probably go, Mina Kimes,” he quipped before giving another colleague a little smirk.
Oops. The comment was caught on video. It quickly spread online Wednesday via Dave Cullinane, who produces Kirk Minihane’s Barstool Sports podcast.
Curtis got his ethnicities wrong, too: the American-born Kimes is of Korean – not Japanese – descent on her mother’s side.
Either way, Kimes’s ESPN colleague Sarah Spain wasn’t having it.
“FYI – Nip is an ethnic slur against people of Japanese descent. What are we doing here, WEEI?” she tweeted. “PS, Mina isn’t even Japanese, you jackass.”
Meanwhile, Boston Globe sports media columnist Chad Finn wrote the company’s lame defense was that Curtis was referring to Hollywood star Mila Kunis, not Mina Kimes.
Spain wasn’t buying that one either, tweeting: “When you have to play the ‘I’m sexist’ card to get out of your ‘I’m racist’ issue, you’re really in the shit.”
Kimes herself had the best comeback, mockingly changing her Twitter avatar to that of Kunis – who is not of Japanese descent either. She then followed up with another response.
ESPN stated: “There’s no place for these type of hateful comments, which were uncalled for and extremely offensive.”
A spokesperson for Audacy, WEEI’s parent company, could not be reached for comment.
The controversy comes only a month after Beasley Media Group suspended Boston sports radio personality Tony Massarotti for making a racist joke about Black Americans.
