Basketball player Meyers Leonard, who signed with the Milwaukee Bucks and will return to the NBA two years after using an antisemitic slur, apologized once again for the 2021 incident.
Leonard made the comments as he addressed the media for the first time since joining an NBA roster once again, reported The Athletic.
“It’s a mixed bag of emotions, for sure,” Leonard said. “It’s certainly the hardest two-year stretch I’ve ever had in my life, as an adult, as a man. The truth is — let’s just cut to it — I made a really big mistake, the biggest mistake of my life. It was an extremely difficult time because, first of all, just let me say to anybody who’s listening, I’m incredibly sorry. It was an ignorant mistake.”
“But if anyone has followed what I’ve been up to off the floor in the Jewish community, I think they’ll see pretty clear that I’ve tried to go above and beyond to show my heart and who I am, that I’m very remorseful. I want to make it right day after day, week after week, coming up on two years (since) the mistake happened. I’ve learned so much about myself as a man, about the Jewish community, just maturing in general,” added Leonard, who said he has spent a lot of quality time with his wife and 8-month-old son, Liam.
“Frankly there were times I wanted to run away. I’ve been very fortunate, let’s say, I guess financially, but that would have been the coward’s way out, to run away and say I’ve made enough money, I want to go start my life elsewhere,” Leonard said.
Leonard caused an uproar in March of 2021 after a social media video surfaced of him using the word “k**e” while playing a livestream game.
Leonard, who was a member of the Miami Heat at the time of the incident but was not playing due to injury, subsequently issued an apology. The NBA nevertheless suspended him for 10 days and fined him $50,000 for the slur.
Several days after the suspension, the Heat traded Leonard to the Oklahoma City Thunder, who immediately waived him. He had not played in the NBA from that time and until he signed with Milwaukee.
Leonard told reporters that the day after using the slur, he decided he had to immediately atone for his mistake. “I looked in the mirror and I said, ‘You better go make this right.’ Show the world, show the Jewish community our heart and learn and do everything in your power, in my power to show them I’m very remorseful.”
“Now here I am, honestly, it’s pretty hard to believe,” said Leonard, who was visibly emotional when speaking. “You know, I don’t hate anybody. But, like I said, it was a difficult road. But I’ve made a lot of amazing relationships in the Jewish community and like I said, spent some quality time with my family, tried to rehab myself and feel pretty darned good about where I’m at.”
Leonard said he has spent considerable time in the Jewish community since the incident trying to learn more about the people that he offended with his antisemitic outburst.
“I started in South Florida,” he continued. “You know, this happened on a Tuesday. Wednesday, of course, my world was collapsing around me. Luckily, for me, I had a mutual friend who was Jewish in Toronto and he called his brother-in-law, who happens to be a rabbi at a Chabad just north of Miami, so then Thursday morning at 8:00 a.m., there I am, speaking at length for quite a while to Rabbi Pinny (Andruiser). Friday night, I was at Pinny’s house for Shabbat dinner. Then two weeks later, I was doing a Passover event.”
“This is very near and dear to my heart. And I was going to stop at absolutely nothing to show the community — frankly, anybody, my friends and family even — that I had to make this right,” he stated.
The antisemitic incident was met with a backlash at the time, with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) criticizing Leonard for using the offensive word. In August of 2021, Leonard spoke at an online event discussing education to combat antisemitism.