Fox Sports Host Slams Aaron Rodgers as 'Malignant Force in the Culture'

"[He] has crossed the rubicon from wacky conspiracy theory guy to malignant force in the culture."

There continues to be no love lost between FS1 host Nick Wright and Aaron Rodgers. Just a week after slamming the star quarterback as "the most disingenuous athlete" of his lifetime, Wright had more words for Rodgers following his recent public feud with Jimmy Kimmel.

After years of taunts from Kimmel about everything from his vaccination status to promotion of wild conspiracy theories, Rodgers fired back on the The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday. While discussing the list—released this week—which named hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged associates, Rodgers seemed to falsely imply that Kimmel would be amongst the names. 

"There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, are really hoping that doesn’t come out," Rodgers suggested. "I’ll tell you what, if that list comes out, I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle."

Kimmel responded by offering to settle the dispute in court, denying that he had any involvement with Epstein. The list was eventually released and did not name Kimmel anywhere, prompting Pat McAfee to apologize on-air for his show's role in spreading false innuendos. 

But Wright pointed out in a 14-minute rant on the Thursday episode of his What’s Wright? with Nick Wright podcast that the Kimmel flap was just the latest in a line of outlandish and egregious claims by Rodgers over the past few years.

"The story is Aaron Rodgers, who is undeniably one of the most famous athletes in America today, arguably the single-most powerful player in the single-most powerful league we have, has crossed the rubicon from wacky conspiracy theory guy to malignant force in the culture and nobody seems to have batted an eye," Wright scathed.

"If Steph Curry went on The Dan Patrick Show and just casually implied that Julia Roberts murdered somebody and seemed serious about it, I don’t think the story would be, ‘Is this going to affect Dan’s relationships with Julia’s movie studio,'" he continued. "I think the story would be, 'What the hell happened to Steph Curry?'"

Wright noted that while "slow dripping" his theories, Rodgers has managed to gather his own army of frothing internet supporters. As an experiment, he said that earlier in the day he tweeted criticism of Rodgers, only for his fans to turn around and claim that Wright himself was a so-called "pedophile" nervous about the Epstein list.

"Rodgers has become the voice in the sports world of some of the most deranged, unhinged people in our populus," Wright declared.

.@getnickwright addresses Aaron Rodgers' comments on Jimmy Kimmel: pic.twitter.com/4j5l1BNRhs

— What’s Wright? with Nick Wright (@WhatsWrightShow) January 4, 2024

But while this may have all started with vaccine conspiracies, Wright says the rhetoric has devolved into something even more troubling. For example, he pointed to Rodgers usage of the term "alphabet army," which is a derogatory name for the LGBTQIA+ community. Though, he says he doubts whether Rodgers understands what the term even means.

"He is so deep in the toxic internet brain vortex that it got lumped in with the mass delusion psychosis he talks about and the Super Bowl logo memes and the 'debate me, bro' to Fauci, and the Epstein list, it is all just one stew of a brain that’s been melting," Wright explained. "And so now he’s throwing out terms that have not only nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry, but that also if he knew what they meant would disavow."

"I think Aaron is a lot of things, I think judgmental of what people do privately sexually is not one of the them," he continued. "And yet, it just spilled out of his mouth like so much of this other toxic bullsh-t that has a platform nearly an hour a week to spew for folks that otherwise I don’t think are looking for it."

"We’ve all become numb to the fact of who is saying it and what he’s saying," Wright exposited. "There was just flatly one of the greatest players we’ve ever seen in America’s favorite sport who plays in the biggest market who has a bigger platform than any other player in the league, more power over his team that any other player in the league. That guy went on national television and casually threw out there to millions of people, 'Hey, this guy that I don’t like, probably a pedophile.' That’s what f-cking happened."

"One of our most prominent voices in sports has become the face, the voice, and most importantly the megaphone for any batsh-t crazy, half-baked theory he stumbles across on the internet," he added. "And it has unfortunately is a bit of a canary in the coal mine for what a lot of us are dealing with in our own personal lives with our own friends, family, or extended family."