Odell Beckham Jr. on being a black celebrity: 'I really feel like a zoo animal'
New York Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr., along with several other prominent black celebrities sat down with Lebron James on the new HBO series, The Shop. During the episode, James brought up the double standard black celebrities face when dealing with fans in public spaces. James argued that white celebrities like Tom Brady, Eli Manning, and Aaron Rodgers are treated differently than black celebrities. LeBron argued that it wouldn't be acceptable to tell fan taking a picture, "Get that f***ing phone out of my face. I'm with my family." However, James believes society would accept a white athlete doing the same thing. He said, "If Aaron Rodgers or one of those guys say that shit, and they post it, somebody's gonna be like, 'Hey, you guys should respect Aaron Rodgers.' They're gonna say to us, 'Oh, you guys are f***ing d***heads.'" As a mega star in the NFL, Beckham could relate to James observation. Beckham has 3.7 million Twitter followers, but when he was unable to take a photo with one of them, the fan cursed at him. Odell compared the fans reaction to that of a child visiting the zoo in hopes of seeing a ferocious lion. Odell said, "You go out there, and the lions are laid out, you know what I mean? It's like, why aren't they doing lion stuff, you know what I mean? Like I've got people who call, 'Odell! Dance!' Like I'm a show punk, a show monkey or something. Like I'm a puppet, you know what I mean?" While Odell doesn't like being objectified and harassed, he knows that it is part of being a celebrity. He said, "It's like to me, that doesn't feel good, but it's like, damn, that's what life became, but can you ever really detach from that?" The Shop airs Tuesday nights at 11 p.m. on HBO.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
