Santonio Holmes Continues Twitter Assault On His Own Image

With ↵Santonio Holmes facing a civil suit for an alleged assault at an Orlando nightclub earlier this month, a reasonable person might conclude that the Steelers receiver would respond by going to ground and not do anything to further stoke controversy. Well, sorry, reasonable person, but Holmes has been busy spouting off incredible stupidity on his Twitter account, from suggesting that one fan kill himself to declaiming that fans don’t pay his checks, so he shouldn’t have to consider their opinions. ↵↵Basically a large share of the topics covered on the first day of the Things A Professional Athlete Shouldn’t Ever Say class.↵

↵↵Those comments drew attention from a number of prominent sports blogs, which is just now starting to trickle its way through to other media. The offending Tweet suggesting that a critical fan should kill himself has been deleted from his account, but here’s the actual text:↵

↵↵⇥Y u tryna make me look like the bad guy. U should try finding the worst thing that you could drink n kill urself.↵↵↵Is that a sentiment that at one point or another most of us have wished or said to someone out of frustration? Speaking for myself, most definitely it is. But celebrities are scrutinized in a way that the vast majority of us never will be, so Santonio has to know that is something he can never say in a public forum. If it has yet to dawn on him that that is exactly what Twitter is, then either someone from the Steelers or one of his own representatives needs to make that abundantly clear.↵

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↵↵Last year, Larry Johnson was suspended by the Chiefs for using slurs about homosexuals on Twitter. While one could argue that Holmes’ comments on the site aren’t quite that extreme, they aren’t that far off. And unless he reins in his language, he may force the team to take action, regardless of what happens with his civil suit.↵

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