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Over the summer, ESPN NFL analyst Mina Kimes accused OutKick of “spreading horrible lies” about her that caused people to post racist messages about her on X.

Three months later, Kimes has yet to provide a single lie we told about her. OutKick has contacted her several times asking for specific examples, therefore we can correct them – if they are actually lies.

For a recap, OutKick published an article questioning why Kimes was able to violate ESPN’s supposed “ban on politics” policy by endorsing Karen Bass for Los Angeles Mayor in 2022 and Tim Walz as vice president in 2024. We compared Kimes’ political commentary to that of Sage Steele, whom ESPN suspended for violating the policy in 2021. ESPN did not provide an on-the-record comment explaining the difference.

In the meantime, former NBC Sports reporter Michelle Tafoya responded to our article by calling Kimes’ praise of Walz’s “masculinity” “embarrassing.”

“I am sincerely embarrassed for @minakimes,” Tafoya wrote. “And how pathetic that her kind of ‘masculinity’ means more than the candidate’s record, which is abysmal. Sincerely, A Minnesotan.”

Kimes responded to Tafoya with a two-second video of LeBron James pretending to be afraid during a Lakers game. 

OutKick’s John Simmons covered the exchange between Tafoya and Kimes and asked the latter for comment. She texted Simmons back, with the following text message:

“Hi John, I don’t have a comment for you, but I do hope you know that your horrible lies about me have led to racism and harassment towards me and my family for some time now. Please don’t ever text me again.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MAY 21: Mina Kimes attends the 45th Annual Sports Emmy Awards at Jazz at Lincoln Center on May 21, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by John Nacion/WireImage)

One might wonder why Kimes, whom ESPN pays around $2 million a year, cares so much about what random trolls say about her on X. We thought she would clear that up last week when she openly discussed her X activity in a conversation with Dan Le Batard and Pablo Torre. Rather, Kimes explained why she started using Bluesky, which has become a left-wing, censorship-heavy alternative to X.

“So much of the discussion about these two platforms [X and Bluesky] and the exodus and what people are looking for and echo chambers, is about politics,” Kimes said. “It’s not political at all. It is the engagement farming. It is that people are now using it to make money in the lowest ways. It is all either rage bait, engagement bait, misinformation. It’s the lowest common denominator.

“For the most part, I don’t read the things that people say to me on X, because if I did, I have recognized that being called ‘DEI’ 30 times a day is not great for my mental health,” Kimes added.

Wait a minute. 

She rarely reads what people say about her on X? Was that not her entire complaint about OutKick, that our “lies” led to people on X saying mean things to her on X?

Upon further review, yes.

In fact, she uploaded several random mentions of her on X, tagged OutKick and Clay Travis, and used the mentions as proof that OutKick had incited “harassment.”

Here are a few of the screenshots:
 

Confused?

Don’t be. Mina Kimes is lying, she’s lying about all of it.

Here’s the truth: Mina Kimes didn’t have to take steps in her career. She rode an escalator up. ESPN started paying her seven figures per year before she was 35 and had an audience. The network named her an “NFL analyst,” despite neither playing in the NFL nor covering the league on the ground.

On her way up, those who cover the industry fawned all over her – from Richard Deitsch to Awful Announcing, from the New York Times to the Washington Post.

She had been told her entire career that she had earned her position and had to overcome a unique set of trials and tribulations as an Asian woman in the sports media. It’s not true. That doesn’t mean she is not talented. She is. But she didn’t earn her stripes.

However, because of all the factors above, Kimes has never had a critical word written about her until OutKick did in 2022. She had hardly been subjected to hateful trolls until she started to discuss politics.

She calls that “harassment,” “racism,” and “bullying.” In reality, it’s called being a public figure who discusses controversial topics online.

And, of course, she reads her X mentions. Of all the public figures we cover, very few people are more concerned about what faceless accounts say about them on social media than Mina is.

Now, she’s moving to Bluesky with the hope of rediscovering a left-wing echo chamber that holds her up as a goddess and tells her she is the modern-day Howard Cosell.

She misses Twitter 1.0, the one where conservatives were censored and 65% of X users identified as “Democrats.” Mina Kimes doesn’t want to be treated fairly; she expects to be treated better.