ESPN’s Mina Kimes, who once shared a great bond with Aaron Rodgers and even worked on a cover story in 2017 for the Pittsburgh Steelers, gradually became skeptical of the QB, whose personality she felt had changed over the years.
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The 42-year-old quarterback recently shared how the American media, including Kimes, villainized him during the pandemic. But when US Magazine released a story on the same, the headline caught the ESPN analyst’s attention.
“Aaron Rodgers Says ESPN’s Mina Kimes Was His Friend Until He ‘Came Out Against COVID’,” the headline read.
After coming across the headline, Kimes fired back on her Threads handle, “Why does this headline make it sound like I’m pro COVID 😭.”
Over his 22-season NFL career, Aaron Rodgers has been part of a few controversies, including one related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The incident dates back to the 2021 NFL season, when Rodgers, who played for the Green Bay Packers, sat in a press conference and, when asked if he was vaccinated against COVID-19, responded, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized.”
However, three months later, it was revealed he was unvaccinated and had sought a holistic treatment exemption that the NFL denied. Per Rodgers, he was allergic to polyethylene glycol (an ingredient used in the mRNA vaccines).
As a result, he underwent an alternative, holistic oral treatment to boost his antibodies and submitted a petition to the NFL to consider him “vaccinated,” which the league denied.
Following these allegations, the reporters and media personalities went against Rodgers. First, they were frustrated with how the veteran QB hosted unmasked press conferences despite league rules requiring unvaccinated players to wear masks.
Secondly, many, including Mina Kimes, felt Aaron Rodgers misled the public. Kimes criticized Rodgers and also publicly called out the alternative medical sources he cited.
In his recent statement about the fallout with the media, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback called out reporters.
“I feel like there’s a ton of hypocrisy out there. You know, everybody loved, you know, loved hearing about my takes… They enjoyed my takes. Mina Kimes, you know, had me to her house for a feature that I did,” Rodgers said on Not Just Football With Cam Heyward. “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.’… 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.”
While Aaron Rodgers called out the media for making him a villain, Mina Kimes criticized him for misleading the public, including his fans.