Trail Blazers announcer breaks silence after firing in wake of problematic posts resurfacing
The now-former Trail Blazers play-by-play broadcaster Braiden Bell has spoken out for the first time since his Thursday firing.Bell, who was axed just hours after Portland announced his hiring over resurfaced racist and misogynistic posts on X, posted an apology statement to social media on Friday.“I am deeply sorry for the language that I used on Twitter,” Bell wrote on X.“These tweets, while wrong, were written by me 14 years ago while I was only 15 years old and have no reflection of who I am today.
I do not take lightly any harm it causes now.“I regret this being my first impression to many of you online, but I can take solace in knowing that the people who truly know me understand that this is not the kind of person I am.Again, I’d like to apologize to anyone who was hurt by my words and will continue to always treat people with kindness and respect.”The social media posts in question were posted from Bell’s X account in 2012 and ’13, and featured derogatory comments about “Asian people.” Bell, 29, also used the terms “wh—s” and “s–t” to refer to women in some posts.By Friday evening, posts using the inflammatory language were deleted from Bell’s X account when viewed by The Post.According to KGW in Portland, one of its journalists previously discovered the posts and informed the Trail Blazers before Bell was fired.“The Portland Trail Blazers have zero tolerance for racist, sexist, or harmful comments,” the Blazers said in a statement.
“Social media posts made by our recently announced play-by-play broadcaster are in clear violation of team and league policies, as well as our values and expectations.Therefore, we will not be moving forward with this broadcaster.“The play-by-play role carries a long legacy of excellence, on the broadcast and in character, and we hold that standard without exception.
We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City.We believe stron...