On Wednesday, comedian and television personality Artie Lange tweeted that his appearance on late-night comedy show @Midnight had been cancelled due to his tweets regarding Cari Champion, host of ESPN2's First Take.
On Tuesday, in a series of tweets, Lange described a sexual fantasy in which he's a slave owner and Champion is a slave:
Since 2012, Champion's role on First Take has been to host and moderate conversations about sports and culture between Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith.
After the tweets started gaining attention, it was pointed out that Lange has appeared on ESPN in the past. An #ISupportCari hashtag was started.
Wednesday afternoon, ESPN issued a statement to BuzzFeed News:
His comments were reprehensible and no one should be subjected to such hateful language. They objectify and demean one of our valued employees under the thin guise of "comedy" and are offensive to all of us. We will not dignify them with any other comment.
Cari Champion has yet to respond publicly to Lange's tweets.
Wednesday afternoon, Lange tweeted a lengthy explanation, but no apology, for his tweets about Champion:
A rep for Artie Lange declined to comment to BuzzFeed News, saying he had already "apologized publicly on Twitter."