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Phelps Calls Le Batard An 'Idiot' After Cutting His Interview Short

Posted Sep 26, 2008 11:01AM By Shane Bacon (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Sports Media

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Michael Phelps might be the best in the world at winning gold medals and drinking Corona Light out of a can at NFL games, but one thing he isn't great at is handling a few "tough" questions.

Yesterday Phelps appeared on the Dan Le Batard Show and in typical Le Batard fashion, was thrown a few random and awkward questions that didn't seem very relevant to anything people would really care about. (For example, the first question was, "Give us a story that involves your agent calling you and you saying "holy bleep I can't believe they're giving me that much money.")


The interview was cut short because Le Batard and Phelps had this exchange and Phelps wasn't in the mood for games (audio here).
"What is the single coolest thing to happen to you since the Olympic Games," Le Batard asked.

Phelps replied that the his biggest thrill since Beijing was setting up a charity through one of his sponsors, Kellogg's. And in a stunning coincidence, Phelps was only doing the interview to promote his appearance on the boxes of various Kellogg's food products.

Le Batard (predictably) pressed Phelps after his pat response, saying, "That was a nice move there Michael because you just segued right into what you were selling there, when that can't be the coolest thing to happen to you since the Olympics. I'm sure you're very happy about it, but the coolest thing, the thing you tell your friends about, when you're out getting a beer?"

Phelps, obviously a little annoyed with this, went into a whole dialogue about promoting swimming and how this was such a thrill and how swimming may cure cancer and on and on until Le Batard really pushed his buttons, bringing up the strip club photos.

"Do you go into the nightclub with these Kellogg's products and just drop them on the floor with your face on them?"

Phelps immediately responded, "Sorry, I think we're going to head to the next interview. Thank you very much for your time."

If that isn't enough, Le Batard and company were having a laugh after the abrupt exit when they realized that the Olympian forgot to hang up the phone. Phelps was still on the line, and was heard saying, "I didn't say nothing. That guy was an idiot, that was ridiculous."

I'm not a huge Le Batard fan by any means, but come on, the guy was trying to have a little fun and Phelps either didn't get the humor or just wasn't having any of it. His 15 minutes of fame is slowly fading away (as seen by his appearance on the Dan Le Batard Show) and hanging up on a cake interview instead of playing ball with the guy makes him look a little less "boy hero" and a little more "spoiled brat."

The guy is set for life, the least he could have said was his favorite moment was getting hit on by a drunk Britney Spears or having Jay-Z ask for his autograph. I'm not sure if either of those happened but look at me, I'm more fun in an interview than Michael Phelps!

[Love to SbB]


Tags: Dan+Le+Batard, DanLeBatard, Michael+Phelps, MichaelPhelps

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