Kelly Stewart claims she resorted to homophobic language in a bid to silence trolls, who targeted her for being a woman in a male-dominated world. (Image: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nKnown by her Twitter handle \u201cKelly in Vegas,\u201d the Kansas native was hired by the broadcaster in early May as an analyst on Daily Wager\u00a0<\/em>and other ESPN sports betting platforms. She was to start her new role sometime this month.<\/p>\nBut Kelly took to Twitter over the weekend to confirm the news and apologize for the \u201cunacceptable and hurtful\u201d language she used nearly a decade ago, and to partially deflect the blame onto Twitter trolls.<\/p>\n
Anti-Gay Slurs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\u201cESPN has notified me they terminated my contract due to deleted tweets from 2012,\u201d she wrote. \u201cI know the words I used were unacceptable and hurtful and I am terribly sorry for this lapse in judgment, but I cannot apologize for standing up to the vicious attacks I, and so many other female personalities, endure from online trolls.\u201d<\/p>\n
Screenshots have since emerged showing four tweets posted by Stewart from March through July 2012, which repeat the same anti-gay slur.<\/p>\n
yeah, but today my timeline is full of f*gs trying 2 say I\u2019m fake. It\u2019s so funny to me. Keep taking with your 17 followers,\u201d reads one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Three of these tweets appear to be responses to online abuse. Another is not so clear. In it, she laments that baseball pitcher Cliff Lee \u201cdecided\u201d to have a good game and ends with the slur used as a hashtag. However, we aren\u2019t party to the message she\u2019s responding to.<\/p>\n