The rift between Aaron Rodgers and Mina Kimes is not a new development in the league. The two once shared a positive relationship. But over the years, cracks in their bond widened, and now the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback is opening up about how the American media completely flipped their opinion on him following a single controversy.
Speaking on Not Just Football with Cam Heyward Show, the Steelers quarterback noted:
“I feel like there’s a ton of hypocrisy out there. You know, everybody loved, you know, loved hearing about my takes on Colin Kaepernick when I said he was one of the top 64 quarterbacks in the league… They enjoyed my takes. Mina Kimes, you know, had me to her house for a feature that I did. All these people were my friends in the media until I came out against COVID and said, ‘I’m not going to stand for this.’ And now after everything has come out, all they can say is, ‘Oh, well, you lied about it.’
“You know, that’s like when somebody has an argument and all they can ever say is they can they attack your character instead of the content of what you’re actually saying. You know that you’re actually on the right side of things. And I’ve said many times when I said I was immunized, it was because that statement alone was the crux of my entire argument and ongoing appeal with the NFL around my vaccination status. Not to mention the hypocrisy around the treatment of players who were nonvaxed. The inhumane way that we were treated as second-hand citizens around the facility.”
In the first half of his NFL career, Rodgers was considered a media darling. Be it through his triumph in the Celebrity Jeopardy game show or highly intellectual press interactions, the quarterback often garnered attention.
By winning the Celebrity Jeopardy show in 2015, Rodgers raised $50,000 for childhood cancer research. As a result, several mainstream and sports outlets like ESPN ran glowing profiles on him.
Shortly after, in 2017, Mina Kimes, who had been with ESPN since 2014, worked on a cover story on Aaron Rodgers for ESPN The Magazine. During that time, Mila also did an interview with Rodgers at her home.
But then, in an August 2021 press conference, when asked if he was vaccinated, Rodgers responded, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized.” But after testing positive for COVID-19 three months later, it was revealed that he never took the vaccine.
Reporters were furious to learn that despite being unvaccinated, Rodgers had conducted unmasked, indoor press conferences with them, while former NFL players like Michael Strahan called out his behavior as “deceptive” and “wrong.”
Rodgers later admitted that he avoided the vaccines due to an allergy to polyethylene glycol (PEG) and expressed skepticism regarding the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
On the other hand, Rodgers has seemingly moved on from his past comments and is focused on his playing career. The 42-year-old is headed into what appears to be his final year in the league, with his team’s season opener scheduled against the Atlanta Falcons at Acrisure Stadium.