If Steph Curry is leading with his full government name, know that he means business.
asserted
he → lead → business
In a 90-second video released on Wednesday, from the Instagram account of “Wardell Curry”, he put the internet trolls who have been attacking his wife for years on notice.
asserted
who → release → notice
“Usually the noise doesn’t bother me, doesn’t bother Ayesha,” the four-time NBA champion and Paris Olympic knockout artist said.
asserted
champion → bother → Ayesha
“But when you’re trying to step on the accomplishments of my wife, and feel the need to have to jump in and give an opinion on something that you really don’t know about, [it] kind of speaks to the bigger conversation on how you view women in this world and what they’re allowed and what they’re not allowed to do.”
asserted
they → try → what
Posterity will remember this as the NBA’s Oscar slap moment, but without the unnecessary violence.
asserted
Posterity → remember → violence
A bizarre turn in the parasocial compact when the restless fanboys pressured a superstar into publicly defending his wife.
asserted
fanboys → pressure → wife
On this occasion, Curry had to defend his wife for the heinous crime of being the leading lady in a Christmas romcom: a Hallmark knockoff called Second Chance Holiday in which Ayesha Curry plays a dating expert with bad holiday luck and shares a kiss with a man who is not Wardell Stephen Curry II – her husband of 15 years and father to their four children.
asserted
who → have → children
On a recent episode of his We Said What We Said podcast, former NBA mainstay Gilbert Arenas reserved an entire segment to take exception to Ayesha turning down the role of basketball tradwife.
asserted
Ayesha → say → tradwife
“She doesn’t act like the other superstars’ wives,” Arenas said.
asserted
Arenas → act → wives
“You know Jordan’s wife.
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You → know → wife
Cookie, that’s Magic’s wife.
asserted
that → ’ → ?
We don’t want to hear from you.
asserted
We → want → you
We just want to know you’re there.
asserted
you → want → ?
You’re fine.
asserted
You → ’re → ?
You’re taking the pictures, but we don’t want to know you.”
asserted
we → take → you
Arenas went even further, calling Ayesha “the only blemish” in the Curry family as Nick Young, who played alongside Curry on Golden State’s 2018 championship team, nodded along.
asserted
who → go → team
Arenas should consider himself lucky that Steph responded in a strongly worded social media statement instead of going the Javaris Crittenton route and pulling a gun on Arenas in the locker room.
asserted
Steph → consider → room
Sports gossips have been making a game of picking apart Steph and Ayesha’s relationship since he shot to stardom at Davidson College.
asserted
he → make → College
They seem to forget that while Steph was stealing hearts as the NCAA Tournament’s baby-faced bracket buster, Ayesha was carving out a solid career in Los Angeles as a working actor, with guest spots on Disney’s Hannah Montana and on CBS’s Gary Unmarried opposite comedian Jay Mohr – who is now the other half of LA Lakers president Jeanie Buss, incidentally.
asserted
who → seem → Buss
The critics blanched when Ayesha joined the 2010s culinary craze with a blog and a YouTube channel, in which she shared dangerous, subversive recipes such as “Stephen’s five-ingredient game-day pasta”.
asserted
she → blanch → pasta
When the hustle mushroomed into a full-blown lifestyle brand – with signature kitchenware and cookbooks, a Food Network show and a landmark CoverGirl deal – the gossips filleted Ayesha for daring to upstage her more famous husband, the real Chef Curry.
asserted
gossips → mushroom → husband
No matter what Ayesha did, it seemed, there was no winning over sports fans steeped in the manosphere’s retrograde views of women.
asserted
it → do → women
They didn’t approve of her sharing bikini photos online or her body language in snaps with Drake or her candor about the struggle to hold on to her sense of identity and autonomy after marriage and motherhood.
asserted
her → approve → marriage
The point was driven home yet again when ex-NFL players Emmanuel Acho and LeSean McCoy, perhaps misunderstanding the concept of acting, debated the Curry kiss on their macho podcast – with Acho suggesting that Ayesha, through her words and actions, keeps telegraphing to the world that “she’s not that into Steph Curry”.
asserted
she → drive → Curry
Intimacy work has become a wedge issue in Hollywood, with a number of prominent actors saying they will no longer participate in kissing or sex scenes – forcing some directors to get creative.
asserted
they → become → directors
But the Curry speculators aren’t arguing about the mechanics of making movies – a point Steph himself hastened to rebut in his video statement.
asserted
Steph → argue → statement
They say this stuff as if they know the Currys.
asserted
they → say → Currys
They don’t.
asserted
They → do → ?
They say this stuff as if they’re also still with their teen sweethearts.
asserted
they → say → sweethearts
They’re not – and Acho especially is one to talk.
asserted
Acho → ’re → ?
They say this stuff as if audiences might also interpret Ayesha’s on-screen kiss as an act of adultery.
uncertain
audiences → say → adultery
They’ll just let the 78 minutes wash over them as they fold laundry or scroll through their phones.
asserted
they → let → phones
These manosphere brains insist on typecasting Ayesha while giving other prominent athlete spouses plenty of runway.
asserted
brains → insist → runway
The recent marriage of Coco Jones, the Grammy-winning singer and star of the Fresh Prince update Bel-Air, and Donovan Mitchell, engine of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is treated as an equal pairing.
asserted
marriage → win → pairing
The same goes for Major League ace Paul Skenes and his gymnast-influencer girlfriend, Livvy Dunne.
asserted
same → go → Skenes
When Travis Kelce started dating Taylor Swift, the talk was all about how he, the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL stood to benefit.
asserted
he → start → Swift
And when Kim K and her sisters take up with high-profile athletes, the manosphere brains roll their eyes, chalk it up to the game and blame any poor performances that might result on the Kardashian curse.
uncertain
that → take → curse
But when it comes to Ayesha, there is no room for self-reflection, growth or individuality.
asserted
it → come → reflection
Her tiresome critics would much rather see her on the sideline managing the kids than see Steph gathering them up to bask in the afterglow of his biggest moments.
asserted
Steph → see → moments
Weirdly, the tradcasting doesn’t stop with Ayesha.
asserted
tradcasting → stop → Ayesha
…and 14 more, not listed.
The Aporia
