Twitter Slams TNT for Pretending Audience Doesn’t Remember Karl Malone Once Escaped Statutory Rape Charges

Brandon ContesJun 9th, 2021, 12:00 pm
 

With the Utah Jazz becoming NBA Championship contenders again, it sparks a connection to the city’s last great basketball run, featuring hall-of-famer Karl Malone.

Nicknamed “The Mailman,” because he always delivered, Malone kept a relatively clean image during his NBA career. But there is a darker past. At the age of 20, while still attending Louisiana Tech University, Malone impregnated a 13-year-old girl, Gloria Bell.

According to Louisiana law, a person cannot consent to sex until the age of 17, and the crime includes a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Despite the blatant evidence, Malone was never charged after having a sexual relationship with a minor. The Mailman would go on to have a legendary basketball career in the NBA, winning two Olympic gold medals and finishing second all-time in career scoring.

News of the incident broke in 1998, more than 14 years after his son Demetrius Bell was born. It took nearly three decades for Malone to begin mending his relationship with Bell, who went on to play in the NFL is an offensive lineman.

Before Demetrius was born, Malone fathered twins, Cheryl and Daryl Ford the summer after graduating high school. Malone kept a distance from them for nearly 17 years, before beginning to reconcile the relationship. Like Bell, Cheryl Ford went on to play professional sports, spending seven seasons in the WNBA.

Malone, who has been celebrated by the Jazz franchise with a statue in front of their arena, was also celebrated by the TNT broadcast Tuesday night. But after he was prominently featured on camera, Twitter grew irate, wanting TNT to remember that the audience knows about Malone’s dark, and largely ignored past.

Watch above via, TNT

Tags: