Speaker 1: Tory Cooper, the one and only Tory Coop, is here
Speaker 1: with me right now.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 3: I usually don't do this, but because it's you, my buddy,
Speaker 3: you have some stuff on your mind involving Angel Reese
Speaker 3: and what have you. So usually I'm the one that
Speaker 3: introduces a subject. But I'm gonna turn around and give
Speaker 3: the floor to you since you're hanging out in my
Speaker 3: studio and all, I'm gonna get a floor to you, Tory,
Speaker 3: take it away.
Speaker 1: What's up? What's on your mind?
Speaker 2: Well, Angel Reese, she's scheduled to play in the new
Speaker 2: three on three league that's coming up. The unrivaled basketball
Speaker 2: season is starting this month, but she came under some
Speaker 2: scrutiny around New Year's Eve because she shared a post
Speaker 2: on her Instagram.
Speaker 4: You know, she's had a stellar season.
Speaker 2: This is the video that is actually still on her TikTok,
Speaker 2: and she got some pretty serious pushback after sharing this,
Speaker 2: and people were pretty unhappy with the way that she
Speaker 2: shared this on a public platform. So I wanted to
Speaker 2: get your thoughts on this because as a woman in
Speaker 2: the industry who has come under her own scrutiny myself,
Speaker 2: I have I wanted to hear where you fell on
Speaker 2: this issue because she deleted her Instagram. And that's the
Speaker 2: most important part about all of this, because clearly she's
Speaker 2: uncomfortable with some of the backlash that she's getting because
Speaker 2: she deleted her Instagram.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the part that I like about the backlash.
Speaker 3: Clearly it's something that a lot of people can't take.
Speaker 3: So if it's something that you can't take, maybe you
Speaker 3: shouldn't expose yourself to the backlash in provoking the backlash.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm glad you're here for this conversation.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought it up because here's the reason
Speaker 3: why I love adel Reese. I think that adel Reese
Speaker 3: is great. I think she's fantastic for the WNBA. I
Speaker 3: love the fact that she's participating in this unrivaled league
Speaker 3: because she's made it very clear she doesn't want to have.
Speaker 1: To go overseas to play.
Speaker 3: We all know what happened with Britney grind and when
Speaker 3: she went to Russia, we all felt like it was
Speaker 3: politicized that she was railroaded. We all saw that she
Speaker 3: suffered months of her life. Okay, we don't wish that
Speaker 3: upon anybody, and we lamented the fact that she had
Speaker 3: to go overseas. Not Angel rees but Britney Grinder. She
Speaker 3: had to go overseas because like a lot of them
Speaker 3: have had to over the years. You got a supplement
Speaker 3: your income because the income that you're making at the
Speaker 3: WNBA isn't nearly enough. I think when you talk about
Speaker 3: the average salary, it was like approximately one hundred and
Speaker 3: twenty four thousand if I remember correctly, Well, guess what
Speaker 3: the average salary in the NBA is over ten million.
Speaker 3: And so when you look at it from that standpoint,
Speaker 3: to supplement your income by playing three on three basketball
Speaker 3: in the United States and Miami specifically for a few
Speaker 3: months where they're talking about doubling the salary that you
Speaker 3: were gonna make as a WNBA player, I'm.
Speaker 1: All for that.
Speaker 3: But here's what I have a problem with toy Andrew
Speaker 3: Reese in doing the things that she has done. Let's
Speaker 3: face reality, she's going to be attached to Caitlin Clarke
Speaker 3: to some degree. If Angel Reee had never waved her
Speaker 3: hand in her face when LSU was beaten Iowa for
Speaker 3: you know, in the final for the National Championship, if
Speaker 3: that hadn't happened, Arel Reese's name night now to be
Speaker 3: as big. Yes she's a talent, Yes she would have
Speaker 3: made the w NBA, But in terms of her popularity,
Speaker 3: it really soared after she took down Kitlan Clark, and
Speaker 3: then Kaitlyn Clark came back last year and got revenge
Speaker 3: by knocking Lsu out in the Elite eight. If I
Speaker 3: remember correctly, Caitlyn Clark. The reason I bring up Kaitlyn
Speaker 3: Clark is because they're attached at the hit with one another,
Speaker 3: which means they're ultimately going to be compared Tory.
Speaker 1: And when you look at Kaitlyn Clark, Kaitlan Clark is bawling.
Speaker 1: She's a Rookie of the Year.
Speaker 3: She was one of the finalists for the league MVP
Speaker 3: honors as a rookie, breaking all types of records. She
Speaker 3: should have been on Team USA. She did choose to
Speaker 3: play in an unrivaled league. Her brand building has been
Speaker 3: incredibly impressive. Now, we could get into the white black guydynamic,
Speaker 3: because inevitably that's inescapable in terms of you being white,
Speaker 3: and as a result, it's contributing to your marketability more
Speaker 3: so than in ajur Reese.
Speaker 1: We could debate that.
Speaker 3: But what's not debatable is the fact that Caitlyn Clark
Speaker 3: has handled her branding extremely well, whereas with aingur Reese
Speaker 3: sometimes you find yourself scratching your head and wondering what
Speaker 3: the hell she's doing? Like that photo right there. Listen,
Speaker 3: I see the way you walk in the game.
Speaker 1: Just listen.
Speaker 3: She's a beautiful young lady, and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: beautiful young ladies in the WNBA. But when you do that,
Speaker 3: you can't come down the line and complain about being
Speaker 3: objectified later on. It's not gonna work with people. Whether
Speaker 3: it's right or wrong, it's not gonna work. And when
Speaker 3: you do stuff like that and you're drawing attention to
Speaker 3: yourself because of that, that can be problematic for you,
Speaker 3: especially when the comparison is going to be drawn to
Speaker 3: Caitlin Clark, who isn't doing such things. That might not
Speaker 3: be fair. I'm not saying it is. And you certainly
Speaker 3: have the right to dress how you want and to
Speaker 3: do what you want and to.
Speaker 1: Live your life. But people have a right to have.
Speaker 3: The opinions about what you put on display, and if
Speaker 3: they don't like it, and they believe that it's not it's.
Speaker 1: Not the right thing.
Speaker 3: For you to be doing when you talk about building
Speaker 3: your brand, I don't know how you can argue that, toy.
Speaker 1: That's my struggle.
Speaker 4: Well, we have to remember one thing.
Speaker 2: She's not Kaitlin Clark, and we can't ask her to
Speaker 2: be anyone else besides herself, and especially not right here.
Speaker 4: We're not going to do that. We want you to
Speaker 4: be you.
Speaker 2: We love seeing the great parts of your journey. But
Speaker 2: we also have to remember she's twenty two years old,
Speaker 2: and I have no problem sharing my age. I'm about
Speaker 2: to be thirty two this year, So you know, you
Speaker 2: have to remember that we all had this time, and
Speaker 2: we've all.
Speaker 4: Made foolish decisions.
Speaker 2: We've made decisions that maybe we're not proud of, you know,
Speaker 2: And you have to remember that we're dealing with someone
Speaker 2: who's twenty two and is now looking at a million
Speaker 2: dollar paycheck potentially. I mean, she's making a lot of
Speaker 2: money very fast, and she was just thrust into a spotlight.
Speaker 2: And you know, Stephen, when you were twenty two, if
Speaker 2: Stephen A was given millions of dollars, could have fancy cars.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure that you probably had some decisions
Speaker 2: that you made that you weren't excited about and that
Speaker 2: you're glad that maybe the entire world didn't have to
Speaker 2: learn about, you know. So the difference here is that
Speaker 2: she's having We're having to watch her all. We're having
Speaker 2: to watch her learn this in front of everybody, and
Speaker 2: so I want to give her grace in that way.
Speaker 2: But I also want to encourage her to bring her
Speaker 2: Instagram platform back, because that is her brand and she
Speaker 2: built that for the last X number of years and
Speaker 2: now she can't use it as a platform to market herself.
Speaker 2: But you have to be cognizant that no matter how
Speaker 2: you step out of your house, you are now Angel
Speaker 2: Reese and you will always be picked apart. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 2: comes with the crown.
Speaker 4: You're a queen. You're beautiful, you know.
Speaker 2: So you just have to remember that if you aren't
Speaker 2: going to say this, if you're not ready for the heat,
Speaker 2: then you know, you just got to be mindful that
Speaker 2: what comes with it. It has to be mindful with
Speaker 2: what I got.
Speaker 3: I gotta say to you, Tori, I gotta push back
Speaker 3: on you a little bit. Okay, I think you're being
Speaker 3: a little bit too PC. Let's call it what it is.
Speaker 3: I am not trying to say that she should be
Speaker 3: criticized or she is wrong. What I'm saying is, by
Speaker 3: pulling it down, clearly you felt there was something wrong
Speaker 3: with it. Now, yes you are twenty two, Yes you
Speaker 3: are young, and there's a lot of things that we
Speaker 3: didn't want people to know about when we were her age.
Speaker 3: Fair enough, especially me. Okay, because I'm thirty years thirty
Speaker 3: plus years removed from that age. I got that part.
Speaker 3: There was no social media then or whatever. But here's
Speaker 3: my point to you. She knows this social media. She
Speaker 3: is not dumb. She's quite a brilliant young lady. She's
Speaker 3: very smart, very accomplished, and on top of it all,
Speaker 3: she is in this age where she does know social
Speaker 3: media exists, and she has exploited it to her advantage.
Speaker 1: And so when you take that into consideration, that.
Speaker 3: Means you're mindful of the imagery and the perception that
Speaker 3: you're resisting in creating about yourself and you have to.
Speaker 3: And I'm saying to you it might have been a
Speaker 3: right or wrong decision depending on what she feels and
Speaker 3: what other people feel. I'm just saying that what's inescapable
Speaker 3: is that it's going even though she's not.
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Clark.
Speaker 3: She's going to be reminded she's not Caitlyn Clark with
Speaker 3: every good thing that Caitlyn Clark does, because that was
Speaker 3: her number one.
Speaker 1: Numbersis in a lot of people's odes. Number one, number two.
Speaker 1: She was seeing doing various interviews and.
Speaker 3: What have you, talking about threats, talking about insults, crying
Speaker 3: about how people were coming at her with such venom
Speaker 3: and hostility, particularly in her last year at LSU before
Speaker 3: she ultimately graduated to the pros. She brought up all
Speaker 3: of these things, which means she was aware of it.
Speaker 3: And if you're aware of it, you have to understand
Speaker 3: that that's going to be part of the judgment that
Speaker 3: comes again you fear or unfair.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, Toy.
Speaker 4: The youth is dealing with this issue.
Speaker 2: Many of them believe that the more I share about myself,
Speaker 2: the more like I'm liked, I'm gonna be.
Speaker 4: People are gonna know me off the basketball court.
Speaker 2: We want to know you off the basketball court, Steven,
Speaker 2: I agree with a lot of the stuff you're talking about,
Speaker 2: but I just wanted to make sure we're still showing
Speaker 2: her grace and where she's at in her life and
Speaker 2: understanding that.
Speaker 4: Look, she is twenty two years old.
Speaker 2: Still, you know I'm not saying, but that doesn't get
Speaker 2: to the other point that another take that I have
Speaker 2: on this where the youth needs to understand that it's
Speaker 2: not all about sharing everything, it's about actually keeping a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff intimate in private. Personally, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: wear that because that's not the way I want to
Speaker 2: be represented.
Speaker 3: Okay, I personally personally, to put myself on frustreet, I
Speaker 3: wouldn't want my daughter to listen.
Speaker 1: My daughter's gonna be in college in a few years, Troy,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. This is just daddy. This
Speaker 1: is just daddy talking.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 3: My daughter's a full aware Daddy had better damn well
Speaker 3: not see an outfit like that on social media.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: Now, now, I ain't judging ajuries, live your life. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about my daughters. I promise you, I promise you.
Speaker 3: I better not see that. They could be in college
Speaker 3: in la and in Boston or anywhere in between.
Speaker 1: Daddy would drop.
Speaker 3: The mic, hopping the car on the plane or wherever
Speaker 3: I'll be. That ain't gonna happen. You said, I'm not
Speaker 3: having it. That's me so again without judging somebody else.
Speaker 3: We understand that everybody's got their own taste. They on flavor,
Speaker 3: and certainly they're on rights, but there are other people
Speaker 3: that's gonna exercise their rights to be ultra.
Speaker 1: Critical about it.
Speaker 3: And then I'm not even talking about the outfit that
Speaker 3: Aurice is warn I'm talking about the overall pressure of
Speaker 3: having to be compared as a brand to somebody who's
Speaker 3: conducting their branding with perfection.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. She's gonna have to deal with that, Tori,
Speaker 1: whether she likes it or not.
Speaker 2: She's opening yourself up to every opportunity, is what I
Speaker 2: want for Angel Reese.
Speaker 4: I don't want Adidas.
Speaker 2: I don't want Nike turning her down because they don't
Speaker 2: see her as someone that's marketable, because do you know?
Speaker 4: And that's that's the pain that I had for her
Speaker 4: in this.
Speaker 2: But I want her to know if she's listening, we're
Speaker 2: excited to still see you bring back that beautiful Instagram
Speaker 2: page and just learn from it. And I think this
Speaker 2: is a perfect segue because I also want to talk
Speaker 2: about the pressures that you face in this realm of
Speaker 2: social media at this age, and I am not immune
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 4: I have had my own.
Speaker 2: Issues with this stephen in the industry being thrust into
Speaker 2: the spotlight. Yes, and I've thought I showed you the picture,
Speaker 2: I texted it to you, and I think it's a
Speaker 2: good segue.
Speaker 4: Here it is.
Speaker 2: This is the picture. I posted this picture in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: This is when I had my first anchor job.
Speaker 4: I was excited about the fame.
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, I want to show people the
Speaker 2: less serious side of me, show them I could be relatable.
Speaker 2: Maybe a brand will want to do is, you know,
Speaker 2: collab with me, Maybe he gets some brand partnerships.
Speaker 4: The news quickly shut this.
Speaker 2: Down and they said I got called into HR for
Speaker 2: this photo and I was told I had to take
Speaker 2: it down because it was suggestive, risque and inappropriate. Now alone,
Speaker 2: I never thought that posting a photo like that would
Speaker 2: be suggestive, risque and inappropriate.
Speaker 1: Really, no, I'm not saying it wasn't inappropriate. Now, it
Speaker 1: wasn't inappropriate.
Speaker 3: It wasn't I'm not trying to imply it wasn't inappropriate
Speaker 3: or anything like that. But when you post a photo
Speaker 3: like that, you do understand that men are gonna look
Speaker 3: at that.
Speaker 1: And be like, hey, that that looks very nice.
Speaker 2: You do you get that part of well that comes
Speaker 2: with stepping outside in a beanie and a hat, like,
Speaker 2: no matter what, I'm going to be subjected to the
Speaker 2: beauty that I have periods, So that part I can't
Speaker 2: get away from.
Speaker 4: But what I was after in that moment.
Speaker 2: I can honestly tell you was not the certification from
Speaker 2: you men.
Speaker 4: I was actually in this moment, I was like, I
Speaker 4: would love to get a brand deal. That'd be so cool.
Speaker 2: You know, That's where I was at, and that's the
Speaker 2: world you live in a social media at that age,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I was probably twenty two actually
Speaker 2: at that time, and that's what I was after. And
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not speaking for Angel Reese. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that's what she was after, but you're I want
Speaker 2: to tell you where I was at emotionally.
Speaker 4: I was excited about my fame.
Speaker 2: I was excited to be able to expand into different
Speaker 2: realms potentially. But again, look at look at that dress.
Speaker 2: You know that that arguably to me appropriate. I didn't
Speaker 2: think I was doing anything inappropriate, but apparently HR did so. Hr.
Speaker 1: But I'm saying, but but let me, let me, let
Speaker 1: me share this with you. Let me let me share
Speaker 1: a little story with you. First of all, let me
Speaker 1: say this to you.
Speaker 3: I've given advice to women in this industry more times
Speaker 3: than I can count. I have never given advice without asked,
Speaker 3: without being asked for it. First, I don't volunte hear it,
Speaker 3: but if you ask me, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Give you advice. And I have told countless women over
Speaker 1: the years.
Speaker 3: In this industry, the bosses are always watching, whether directly
Speaker 3: or indirectly. There's always eyes on you, okay, And so
Speaker 3: you could be in a nice dress, you could be
Speaker 3: on a red carpet, you could be on the beach or.
Speaker 1: Vacation or whatever.
Speaker 3: What you post is what they're paying attention to because
Speaker 3: they're trying to measure what your intentions are based off
Speaker 3: of what they see. The other thing that's important to
Speaker 3: point out, Tori, is this. Having said all of that,
Speaker 3: sometimes they're wrong. A lot of times they might be wrong.
Speaker 1: But you know what the golden rule is those who
Speaker 1: have the gold. Those who have the gold make the rules,
Speaker 1: and so it fluctuates. It shouldn't, but it does.
Speaker 3: And there's rules that they don't want to We don't
Speaker 3: want to act like it. There's rules for women, there's
Speaker 3: rules for black people, there's rules for other folks. Some
Speaker 3: folks don't have rules compared to what others have, and
Speaker 3: we continuously point to the level of unfairness that exist,
Speaker 3: but we ultimately always end up concluding it's inevitable, and
Speaker 3: so you have to be mindful of it all moving
Speaker 3: forward in this industry.
Speaker 1: That's what I had to say about that.
Speaker 2: Younger kids right now are also not able to see
Speaker 2: forty years from now. You know, you post that photo,
Speaker 2: You're not thinking what's this going to do to me?
Speaker 4: For forty years from now? You know, think about that.
Speaker 2: You know when you post this, what's gonna happen to
Speaker 2: my sponsorship? And my last thing is if you're a
Speaker 2: young member of society today and you have social media
Speaker 2: and you are at big time, just remember that you
Speaker 2: need to have advisors around you, paid advisors as well
Speaker 2: as people who knew.
Speaker 4: You before your face.
Speaker 1: That's great advice.
Speaker 2: Because Beyonce, she had her mom on Dour and her
Speaker 2: cousin right out the gate.
Speaker 4: I want to pay.
Speaker 2: She wanted eyes around her who were paying attention to
Speaker 2: the world she was going to be living in, and
Speaker 2: the people right now, who are going through this, who
Speaker 2: are facing these moments, who are thrust into the spotlight.
Speaker 2: Take a look at your advisors around you. Do they
Speaker 2: have your best interest? And if you do get pushed
Speaker 2: back in this way, ask yourself the people who were
Speaker 2: the people around me during that time and what do
Speaker 2: they say about this? And keep that in mind because
Speaker 2: your reputation at the end of the day, you have
Speaker 2: the power over that.