OOPS! BRITNEY SPEARS WELCOMES WEMBANYAMA TO OUR CRAZY COUNTRY
It’s not too late to consider a one-way trip home, with the Wemby spectacle pulled into tabloid culture by none other than the pop princess — who claims a harmless tap led a security guard to hit her
It would be perfectly understandable if he fled America right now and returned to his happy place, Ile de la Jatte, the relaxed island west of Paris where he lives and draws sketches and buys mangos at the market. Victor Wembanyama could play pro ball in France and elude the madness of our TOXIC republic before Britney Spears yells HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME at his security detail, allowing the pop star to sue him before he turns 20.
Welcome to our wacko land, Frenchman.
And he thought it would be as easy as eyeing the basketball, as it’s lobbed toward a 10-foot-high hoop, and depositing it through the cylinder with the unprecedented advantages of standing 7-5 with a 32-inch vertical leap and 8-foot wingspan. Hell, it took Wemby just two weeks to encounter the cultural circus he’s loping into. Is he sure he doesn’t want a one-way ticket on the first flight home?
His first mistake was entering a restaurant, popular with NBA ballers, for dinner inside a Las Vegas casino — the wrong town and the wrong place if he’s trying to lay low, which, of course, is impossible anyway at his vantage point. His second mistake was not realizing someone would try to approach him. His third mistake was not understanding the preying tentacles of TMZ and how Harvey Levin will target him like no other athlete on Earth, having tired of Aaron Rodgers and the preposterousness of Michael Jordan’s son smoking “hookah” through the breasts of Scottie Pippen’s ex-wife, which demands an immediate epilogue to “The Last Dance” docuseries.
But how could anyone expect Wembanyama to know that a bonkers musical princess could ruin the eve of his Summer League debut? In the sort of tabloid he-said/she-said he hasn’t dealt with in his homeland, Spears filed a police report accusing Damian Smith — director of security for the San Antonio Spurs — of striking her in the face with a backhand and knocking off her glasses. All she was doing, Spears said, was tapping Wemby on the shoulder as they were entering Catch in different parties inside the Aria hotel and casino. She wanted a photo, she said.
“I recognized an athlete in my hotel lobby as I was heading to dinner, I later went to a restaurant at a different hotel and saw him again,” Spears wrote on her Instagram stories, in what represents the first and hopefully only time I ever quote her. “I decided to approach him and congratulate him on his success. It was really loud, so I tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.
“Traumatic experiences are not new to me, and I have had my fair share of them. I was not prepared for what happened to me last night. … I simply tapped him on the shoulder. His security then backhanded me in the face without looking back, in front of a crowd.”
What Spears should understand, as much as anyone in the public eye, is that she shouldn’t touch the body of a celebrity — even if it’s intended as a friendly gesture — when it’s obvious he’s being accompanied by a muscular protector. How would her security guards react if someone tapped her on the shoulder? Doesn’t matter. She wants Team Wemby to apologize and sweat as the Vegas police department investigates and possibly sends the case to the district attorney. Knowing her history, Britney might want his money by sundown. She claims Wembanyama was laughing as she was struck, which may or may not explain why a witness claims to have heard her scream, “This is f—ing America!”
“I also don’t appreciate nor do I think this is a laughing matter,” Spears wrote. “Watching the player smile and laugh was cruel and demoralizing with the situation that took place. I am 5’3 and he’s 7’4…”
Obviously, if Smith struck Spears in the face, he went much too far and probably will force the Spurs to settle. But Wembanyama’s side of the story is much different. He says she grabbed him from behind, which is considerably more menacing than a shoulder tap.
“Something did happen, a little bit, when I was walking with some security from the team to some restaurant," Wembanyama said at a Spurs practice session, where a crusty coach, Gregg Popovich, could not have been pleased. “We were in the hall. There was a lot of people, so people were calling (at) me, obviously. There was one person who was calling me, but we talked before with security. I couldn't stop. That person was calling me, ‘Sir, sir,’ and that person grabbed me from behind.
“I didn't see what happened because I was walking straight and didn't stop. That person grabbed me from behind — not on my shoulder, she grabbed me from behind. I just know the security pushed her away. I don't know with how much force, but security pushed her away. I didn't stop to look so I could walk in and enjoy a nice dinner.”
He wasn’t aware of the media after-effects until Thursday morning. “Sacre bleu!” his countrypeople must have screamed over their escargots de Bourgogne. His nation glimmers in pride that their Victor is worldly, scholarly and the total antithesis of all things Britney Spears. Next thing you know, they’ll wonder if he’s shooting up heroin in a back alley.
“I didn't know for a couple hours, but when I came back to the hotel ... I thought it was no big deal, and then security of the Spurs told me it was Britney Spears," Wembanyama said. “At first, I was like, ‘You're joking,’ but yeah, it turns out it was Britney Spears. I never saw her face. I just kept walking straight.”
Staying on the straight and narrow doesn’t mean he’ll avoid the traps of American celebrity. Better he faces such an incident now so he learns from it. This is only the beginning of his American education, the burden he faces as the sport’s Next Big Thing. After he spoke, Spears fired back, making sure TMZ and the New York Post and all the world’s gossip columns heard her. She said the story is “super embarrassing to share with the world” while urging “people in the public eye to set an example and treat all people with respect. … I get swarmed by people all the time. In fact, that night, I was swarmed by a group of at least 20 fans. My security team didn’t hit any of them.”
It’s daunting enough, 5,400 miles from home, to be making his NBA exhibition debut Friday night against the Charlotte Hornets on ESPN. In the age of Wild Wild West media, social and otherwise, no one in basketball history faces the searing scrutiny that Victor Wembanyama encounters from this point on. For now, he says, “I can’t wait. I can’t wait. … No one can worry about me not being myself. Coming into a new environment it’s important not to lose that sense of just being myself, having fun and experiencing it. This is the time to experience stuff on the court — because when the season starts, it’s about winning.” For certain, he must be discreet about his public life, especially in a hotspot like Vegas.
Before Britney Spears finds him, repeats the scene and says, “OOPS! I DID IT AGAIN.”
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.