Podcast Host Condemned Coach Bob Huggins for Using Gay Slur — But He Was Still Fired for Playing the Clip on Air

Josh Neighbors, host of the Locked on Big 12 podcast, played the clip of Bob Huggins using a gay slur in an effort to condemn him for the comments.

Unfortunately for Neighbors, his condemnation ended up earning him a bigger punishment than the man who made the original remark.

Despite playing the clip for the purpose of calling out the West Virginia University men’s basketball coach, Neighbors was fired for airing it uncensored. On Wednesday evening, he revealed on Twitter that he’d been let go.

“I made the conscious decision to play Bob Huggins’ comments in their entirety, and also without censoring the slurs that he used,” Neighbors said. “I did that because I thought it was important to play the full context of what he had said. I followed that up by saying I thought what he had said was abhorrent, I thought it was hateful. And also, I’d said that if I were the AD, I would have fired him and I would not want somebody like that espousing those views coaching my team.

“The folks at Locked On felt differently. They felt because I was willingly posting hate speech, which I did — I was not using the hate speech, I was obviously trying to combat it and say it’s terrible and awful and should not happen.”

Neighbors said after that episode, he received an email from the company saying he’d be locked out of all the accounts related to the podcast and that his future would be decided soon. During a brief phone call with Locked On Network founder David Locke, Neighbors learned that decision was already made.

While Neighbors disagreed with the decision, he understood the company had a “zero-tolerance” policy on hate speech.

“I thought I was using my platform to combat the hate speech, say it’s unacceptable, to play it in its entirety to give the effect of, ‘Oh my god, that was reckless, careless, and hateful,'” Neighbors said. “And it did not matter to the folks at Locked On.”

Neighbors had been the host since January 2020 and has done more than 600 episodes. He ended the video by thanking the company for his time there.

Watch above via Twitter.