Jillian Michaels, Abby Phillip Clash Over “Racialized” Discussion About Kennedy Center Awards
Political discussions and wrong assumptions almost always lead to arguments. Biggest Loser star Jillian Michaels accused CNN anchor Abby Phillip of racializing a discussion sparked by the Kennedy Center awards, and things got heated.
During a NewsNight broadcast, they discussed President Donald Trump honoring Sylvester Stallone, Michael Crawford, George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and the band KISS at the prestigious annual event. Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky said this was Trump’s way of changing culture, and Michaels, a known MAGA supporter, shifted the discussion to gender testing in sports and slavery. She also called out what she believes to be political bias in cultural institutions.
“Every single thing is like, ‘Oh, no, no, no, this is all because white people are bad,’” she said. “People migrated from Cuba because white people bad, not because of Castro. Yes. No, it’s in there.” Michaels brought up Change Your Game, a Smithsonian installation that covers gender testing in sports. “It’s not complex. It’s basic science. Is it fair to have biological men competing against biological women in sports? No. But why is this in the Smithsonian?”
Phillip had seemingly had enough of the conversation being off-track, and said they did not have time to dive deep into all of the points Michaels was making. However, the 51-year-old personality didn’t take too kindly to being silenced. “Of course we don’t,” she said. “Because then you’re going to lose the argument. And everything is racialized, just like you’re trying to do to me now.”
Phillip grew even more incredulous as Michaels was the person to bring up the issue of race. “Excuse me?” she asked. “Just to be clear. You brought up race. This was a conversation about the arts. And you brought up race.” Michaels tripled down and said Phillip was “strawmanning” her comments before returning to her point about Cuba. Phillip, unwilling to continue the back-and-forth, eventually got the conversation back on track. Check out a portion of their argument above.
