Dave Portnoy has hit back at the ‘scumbag’ intern that claimed they were fired from Barstool for posting a message to Charlie Kirk’s family.
Soon after Kirk’s unexpected passing, a user on X revealed that they had been managing Barstool Texas Tech’s account at the time, only to be dismissed a few days afterward.
The user stated they had posted a message asking for ‘prayers’ for Kirk’s family following the tragic news, which subsequently led to their firing by Barstool for making that post.
Taking to social media, the user – named ‘TortillaSniper’ – wrote: ‘Running Barstool TTU was a dream of mine.
‘I felt honored to represent Texas Tech and to be part of what I believed was a brand that stood for authenticity, being unfiltered, and offering a different perspective. But after recent events, I’m appalled that I was ever associated with this company.
‘On September 10th, Charlie Kirk was tragically killed. A spouse and father of two young children had his life unjustly taken. I simply shared a post offering prayers for his loved ones. No political stance. No hidden agenda. Just sheer human kindness.
Dave Portnoy has hit back at a former intern who claimed they were fired for posting a tribute message to the family of Charlie Kirk
Kirk, a close ally of Trump, was fatally shot at a Q&A event at Utah Valley University last week
The intern took to social media to share a statement and, in turn, call out Portnoy and Barstool
‘And how did Barstool respond? I was berated, lost access to the accounts, and was abruptly dismissed. Their rationale? ‘We don’t engage in political discourse.’ That’s absurd.
‘Barstool discusses politics when it suits their interests; they selectively choose their timing. Yet apparently, offering prayers to a bereaved family crosses their boundary.
‘Dave Portnoy and Barstool love to pretend they’re rebels, that they’re uncensored, that they’re different. The truth? They’re hypocrites. Weak.
‘A fraud of a company that silences its own people for showing humanity. They’ll exploit tragedy when it gets clicks, but fire someone for showing empathy’.
After the user’s post went viral, many fans called for a response from Barstool boss Portnoy. And it didn’t take long for him to fire back.
Taking to X, he wrote: ‘I hate this kid. He was an intern in a program of 200 interns. We have pretty hard and fast rules not to do politics or personal opinions on those accounts. This was in place before any of this.
‘If you run a brand account for any company you don’t do personal stuff from the brand. It’s day 1 stuff. We don’t want 200 teenage interns giving their takes on the world. Every single account followed the rules.
‘He was the only 1 that didn’t and then he also started fighting with people in comments calling them a**holes . It had nothing to do with what he said and just how we run a massive intern program.
‘To be honest I didn’t even know it happened till I saw this kid call me a fraud. Maybe if he reached out to me first instead of going wacko I coulda helped. So I have no sympathy for him. He’s trying to use this to build his career. Scumbag move to be honest’.
The user shared a lengthy statement in which he labelled Barstool a ‘fraud of a company’
Portnoy swiftly fired back and insisted that the user in question failed to ‘follow the rules’
Other users on X appeared to agree with Portnoy as they weighed in on the situation
Shortly after, screenshots of the alleged group chat for the Barstool Texas Tech interns was leaked on social media and appeared to show the intern apologizing for posting the message on official Barstool accounts.
While some fans agreed with the intern, other’s struggled to see their perspective. In response, one account wrote: ‘You posted it from an official Barstool account. Everyone else did it from their personal account. You don’t understand the difference?’.
Portnoy sparked backlash last week, in the wake of Kirk’s shocking death, after he claimed the divisiveness of Donald Trump played a huge role in the tragedy.
‘When I say Trump has a huge part in it, I don’t necessarily mean he’s to blame for it, but he’s so divisive… [even just] his face is divisive. People hate him so much,’ Portnoy said.
‘And the left and the right, the rhetoric – especially to me the left, is insane – and it just boils, boils, boils, boils.
‘This happened with Trump, when his assassination attempt [happened] there was like a three-hour period of “let’s tone down the rhetoric”, and then they’re right back to it.’
He then added: ‘If you sit there and you call people Nazis over and over and over, and say that they’re threatening Democracy and they’re fascist over and over… you can’t then be like, “What happened?”
‘That goes together, because if you truly think you’re killing a Nazi, or you truly think you’re killing a fascist, in your head you’re thinking “I did good for society.”‘
The Barstool Sports chief was speaking in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah
Kirk, a married father of two, was hit by a single bullet while speaking to a crowd at the public university in Orem. He collapsed immediately after and was rushed to hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Kirk, a conservative activist and close ally of Trump, was shot and killed while hosting a Q&A event with students at Utah Valley University last Wednesday.
Kirk’s death sparked controversy in America after a number of the right-wing commentator’s critics appeared to celebrate his death on Wednesday.
NFL franchise the Carolina Panthers have fired a junior employee after he disgustingly mocked the assassination on Instagram, with several left-wing social media fanatics also saying Kirk ‘deserved’ to be shot.
