Sign up here to get it in your inbox. Highlights include a small golf course, waterfalls, and livestock he tends to daily. Sheep, pigs, cows, warthogs, and goats mill about in the distance as he checks me the ball. Williamsβthe year-old stand-up comedian and actor who has carved out an acclaimed and lucrative lane on the edge of the mainstreamβplays regularly, he says. Despite being famously short in stature, he shows an ability to dart to the basket, scoop layups under the defense, and at least attempt an off-balance right hook shot pretty consistently.
And while I love playing the game, I possess little natural intelligence for it. Afterward, as we sip Liquid Deaths, he warmly explains that what I call making space is, in fact, fouling.
I apologize, and he stops me. My bad. He delivers this post-game monologue in signature fashion, slow and unfurling, with a high-pitched bite. His stand-up routines and interviews can stretch out in this manner, casual but eviscerating.
Even his assistant is laughing at me. And I mean, in jail, this guy gotta die today. It turns out anybody could get it, at any time. During that conversation, which has been viewed 83 million times and counting on YouTube, Williams spent nearly three hours speaking with a candid and confrontational tone rarely heard from polite celebrity society.
Everything that happened after that was a surprise, especially to Shannon Sharpe. Still, he had no idea where their talk would go. He takes off. As the interviewer, I have to make a split-second decision. Do I cut him off and go where I originally wanted to go, or do I let him go? And in that split second, I let him go.
