Kim Mulkey said she didn’t have any time to read the Washington Post story about her before her big game on Saturday.
The article, which Mulkey preemptively threatened the outlet over before it was even published, came out just hours before No. 3-seeded LSU defeated No. 2 UCLA, 78-69, in a Sweet 16 clash Saturday afternoon.
“You’re telling me something I didn’t know, so you’re the bearer of good news, bad news, however you want to look at it,” Mulkey told ESPN’s Holly Rowe when the latter revealed that the article had been published. “But are you really surprised? Are you really surprised by the timing of it? But I can tell you I haven’t read it. Don’t know that I will read it. I’ll leave that up to my attorneys.”
When asked a similar question after the game, Mulkey reiterated what she told ESPN earlier, adding that, “Must have thought y’all would look at it, get some clicks or be a distraction.”
The article reported on how Mulkey allegedly treated gay players, her relationship with Brittney Griner, how she acted during her tenure at Baylor — where she was previously the women’s basketball coach — during the football’s sexual assault scandal, details about her relationship with her father and her comments about LSU star Angel Reese.
Mulkey’s attorneys said the coach has not treated gay players “more harshly or differently” in a letter to the Washington Post.
Mulkey, through her attorneys, also pushed back that she has not supported Griner, who was imprisoned in Russia for 294 days.
After rumors of a looming Washington Post article about Mulkey emerged last week, she railed against the outlet and the reporter, Kent Babb.
“I wouldn’t normally discuss media rumors about me, but I felt the need to publicly address what exactly this reporter for the Washington Post has been doing the past several years,” Mulkey said last Saturday. “And the lengths he has gone to try and put a hit piece together. This reporter has been working on a story about me for two years. After two years of trying to get me to sit with him for an interview, he contacts LSU on Tuesday, as we were getting ready for the first-round game of this [NCAA] tournament, with more than a dozen questions, demanding a response by Thursday right before we’re scheduled to tip off. Are you kidding me?
“This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet, and the reporter knew it. It’s just an attempt to prevent me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain’t gonna work, buddy. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern that goes back years. I told this reporter two years ago that I didn’t appreciate the hit job he wrote on [LSU football coach] Brian Kelly, and that’s why I wasn’t going to do an interview with him.”
“After that, the reporter called two former college coaches of mine and left multiple messages that he was with me in Baton Rouge to get them to call him back — trying to trick these coaches into believing that I was working with the Washington Post on a story.”
Through her attorneys, Mulkey also said she was not happy the Washington Post reached out to her family for the story, adding that they did not “relate in any way to her career.”
LSU did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post about the Washington Post article.
After Saturday’s game, Mulkey also criticized a column published by the Los Angeles Times on Friday that contrasted the styles of UCLA and LSU.
She said she has no issues with reporters criticizing coaches, but she took issue about what was written about the players.
“The one thing I’m not going to let you do, I’m not going to let you attack young people, and there were some things in this commentary, guys, that you should be offended by as women,” Mulkey said Saturday. “It was so sexist, and they don’t even know it.”
Warning: A search of the terms below will bring up graphic content
“It was good versus evil in that game today,” she added. “Evil? Called us dirty debutantes? Take your phone out right now and Google dirty debutantes and tell me what it says. Dirty debutantes? Are you kidding me?
“I’m not going to let you talk about 18- to 21-year-old kids in that tone. It was even sexist for this reporter to say UCLA was milk and cookies.”
