This probably isn’t the most popular viewpoint in the world but I must say hurray for Tiger Woods.
I don’t mean his golfing prowess I mean his cheating with half the population of the world. Now, personally, I hate squeaky clean celebrities in any field (or bunker in Tiger’s case). How I used to wish daily to hear that Torvill and Dean had been found running a brothel in Soho. How I yearned to read that Gary Lineker was in fact a serial killer who first had sex with his dead victims and then cooked their eyeballs for later use. What I wouldn’t have given to discover that Sue Barker was actually a bondage freak who was fond of suspending Cliff Richard from the ceiling and then putting a gimp mask on him. Sadly none of that ever happened. So, well done Tiger for restoring my faith in hideously overpaid clean cut sportsmen.
Tiger Woods is a cheat the tabloids shrieked. This prompts four questions. Yeah? And? So? What? Is it anyone’s business but Tiger’s and his missis? No it isn’t. So, he might have been a bit friendly with more women than most blokes even meet in their lives. Who gives a toss other than his other half?
I do find it a bit hypocritical I must say that he’s escaped the kind of castigation that Mike Tyson received a few years back when accused of rape. Tyson was a great boxer but he always had that air of..er..”nastiness” about him and the papers gleefully jumped on his supposed transgression with the money hungry young woman who accused him of raping her just because he didn’t let her spend the night but sent her home in a taxi. As someone said at the time, she wasn’t the first one he’d bruised around the ring.
Tiger however, is a more acceptable kind of sportsman apparently. Or he was. Now Gillette are planning to drop him from their ad campaign (maybe he should see if Durex need a representative) because of his sullied image. How about dropping Thierry Henry too? How much more sullied can a sportsman get after he “threw” the ball across for France’s winner in the World Cup Play-off against Ireland.
So, I say, well done, Tiger. I shall never hear of Tiger Woods playing another hole without a smile from now on.
clarkey
3 months ago
“I do find it a bit hypocritical I must say that he’s escaped the kind of castigation that Mike Tyson received a few years back when accused of rape.”
Erm, have i actually read this correctly? For example, when you saw “accused” do you mean “convicted”? Tyson’s “conviction” for rape and Tiger’s marital indiscretions….really?! I think there is a very obvious reason why the two are treated differently. And it has little to do with hypocrisy. Over and above any possible race-based contradictions, rape is illegal. Marital infidelity isn’t.
Assuming that this article is not about the treatment, fair or otherwise, of Tyson within the American judicial system, that system’s inherent flaws, and/o ther treatment of African-Americans within American society at large, this is just a really, really bad, and ill-informed, comparison to draw.