NFL legend Jerry Rice did not like a question he received at the American Century Championship, and he did not respond well to it.
When two men who have identified themselves as reporters from Starcade Media asked Rice, “Do the Chiefs have a good enough receiving corps to win again?” Rice responded, “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”
As shown in a video published by TMZ.com, Rice then said, “I will fuck you up” and, “If you want some, come get some!”
Rice told TMZ the two men were trying to get a rise out of him by smirking while asking him about the team that beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl, but nothing in the video supports that characterization.
“I’m going to defend the San Francisco 49ers,” Rice told TMZ. “This is my history.”
Starcade Media posted a statement on social media saying, “We meant absolutely no disrespect to Jerry or the 49ers when asking this question as we have a profound respect for the great players that have played this game, especially (in our opinion) the greatest receiver of all time. The confrontation that followed was very unfortunate but we were not trying to elicit a negative reaction and there were no ‘smirks’ as Mr. Rice suggested. We simply wanted the input of the greatest receiver in league’s history about the Chiefs receiving corps and if it had improved enough to continue winning at a high level after an historically rough season for the group.”
If Rice didn’t like the question, he was free to simply decline to answer it. Unless something happened that wasn’t in the video, Rice’s reaction was so over the top that it’s hard to imagine what was going through his mind when he responded to such a benign question with anger and threatening violence.