Shannon Sharpe told ‘don’t be a woman, be a man’ in a BIZARRE video by Jason Whitlock, as he responds to comments that Skip Bayless lost respect for him on Undisputed

Jason Whitlock has told Shannon Sharpe ‘don’t be a woman, be a man’ after he claimed his Undisputed exit was down to a lack of respect from Skip Bayless.

Sharpe opened up on his split with Bayless to Stephan A. Smith on Friday, who he has now joined for verbal sparring session’s on ESPN’s First Take after six years on FS1.

Sharpe told Smith: ‘Whatever the relationship is, once one partner has no respect for the other, the other partner then in turn loses respect for said partner. Then I think it’s only a matter of time.

‘Because I felt in that moment he [Skip Bayless] had lost all respect for me, he had no respect for me.’

It prompted a strange response from Whitlock, who shared a video on X about Sharpe’s Undisputed departure on Saturday morning.

Sharing that clip from Sharpe, Whitlock followed it by saying: ‘Respect, that’s a female emotion, a female energy. That’s why Aretha Franklin sang about it.

‘As a man, regardless of color, you are supposed to be about winning the respect of God. 

‘Once your focus is there, the respect or lack-there-of from men will not trigger you, won’t make you emotional, won’t make you want to pick up a gun because someone disrespected you, won’t make you lose your cool on television because someone who really doesn’t matter didn’t respect you.

‘Don’t be a woman, be a man. Be about winning the respect of God and dismissing the people who disrespect you here on this planet.’

Whitlock didn’t mention Sharpe or Bayless by name but left viewers in no doubt about what he was referring to given how he teed his comments up.

Sharpe, a three-time Super Bowl winner from his playing days in football, and Smith joined forces in time for the new NFL season but the transition has not been the smoothest.

Several times viewers have gotten on his case for accidentally calling Smith ‘Skip’ on-air, to the point that Smith recently took to X in order to defend his co-host. 

Bayless and Undisputed on the other hand took some time off and eventually replaced Sharpe with a rotating group consisting of Lil Wayne, Keyshawn Johnson, and Richard Sherman.