Joe Budden is no stranger to setting people off online. The rapper turned podcaster did so as recently as this weekend while him and the JBP crew discussed Megan Thee Stallion. During her defamation trial against blogger Milagro Gramz, a Roc Nation employee revealed that she had an offer from the Call Of Duty video game franchise.
However, after learning she'd be a shootable character, she declined. "That triggered her and she full stop said ‘I’m not doing this," Senior VP of Branding & Strategic Partnerships at Roc Nation Daniel Kinney recalled.
Joe Budden and his cohosts were understanding of Megan making that decision. However, things quickly went left after he said this. "I don't even play Call Of Duty, I'd have bought it off the strength."
A lot of people took this is a disrespectful joke about a very serious situation. These folks presume that Joe meant he would have purchased the game if he was going to be able to shoot and "kill" Megan. For about a full day, no explanation was given as to what he really meant.
But thanks to a new audio clip from the JBTV After Hours show, we have some clarification from Budden himself.
Megan Thee Stallion Milagro Gramz Lawsuit
In the clip, Joe recognizes that it was "ill-timed" and is by no means defending it. However, he also says he didn't mean to make the comment for the sake of trying to be funny.
According to his explanation: "If one of the number one games is trying to put you in as a shootable character, then that must have had data that says that will get a causal fan to the store, just for that reason."
He continues, "So, I said as someone who doesn't play the game, I would go get the game. Again, maybe ill-timed, but it wasn't so jokey jokey."
Folks still aren't buying his explanation, arguing that he's just being smart and really didn't mean anything he said. As he also says in the clip, "There are a lot of agendas being pushed, none of them being mine."
At the end of the day, you can believe what he said or just move on and disagree.
Megan's trial began on Thursday, November 20, in a Miami federal courtroom. She testified herself for about two hours that day, defending her position that Milagro Gramz "created a space for a lot of people to come speak negatively about me." On Friday, November 21, Gramz' legal team took the stand and questioned her argument's credibility.
