Riley Gaines escalates feud with ‘senile old man’ Keith Olbermann: ‘He still lives with his mom in her basement’
Riley Gaines has plenty of supporters since becoming the face of fighting against biological males in girls’ and women’s sports.
Of course, that’s come with plenty of critics, too.
One of her biggest is Keith Olbermann, with whom Gaines was in a war of words on X, formerly Twitter, several months ago.
Olbermann said the “stupid” and “unsuccessful” Gaines, a 12-time All-American and SEC record holder, “sucked at swimming.”
It didn’t stop there, though, as Olbermann called her a “transphone” who “has no reputation to ruin.”
In a video responding to Olbermann’s post, she recorded herself showing off her trophies for several of her accolades, including All-SEC first-team, three SEC titles, a second-place finish nationally, an SEC community service award, an SEC female scholar-athlete of the year and others.
She also qualified for the U.S. trials for the Tokyo Olympics.
Gaines hopped on Joe Rogan’s podcast this week, and the two revisited the barbs she and the former ESPN and MSNBC host traded.
“I very proudly finished my career as a 12-time All-American, a five-time SEC champion, the SEC record holder, SEC scholar athlete of the year, SEC community services leader of the year, I can keep going on, and it’s like, this senile old man wants to attack me? He still lives with his mom in her basement. I had to ask my dad, ‘Who is this guy?’ I don’t even know who he is,” Gaines said.
In the video, Gaines actually broke a glass trophy, but she said the SEC sent her a new one.
“They’re like, ‘We’re so sorry you had to waste your time and break a trophy over Keith Olbermann, we wanted to send you a new one,’” she said. “Whatever, I got more of them. Thanks, Keith Olbermann.”
“My motto is – I feel like for the most part, I pretty much live by this – ‘Don’t punch down. Don’t give someone attention when that’s clearly what they’re vying for,’” said Gaines. “But I literally could not resist myself when it came to him.”
Gaines decided to become an advocate for fairness in women’s sports shortly after competing against Thomas in the 2022 national championships.
