Nick Young apologized within hours of the Warriors star’s video. Gilbert Arenas offered a qualified apology that repeated his criticism.
Ayesha Curry stars as Chelsey in Second Chance Holiday, which premiered Nov. 5 on The Roku Channel. (The Roku Channel)
Stephen Curry said he tried to laugh it off. For days, the Golden State Warriors star watched former athletes and sports commentators dissect a kiss his wife, Ayesha Curry, shares with a co-star in her first leading film role. Then he watched them turn the scene into a debate about her marriage and her place beside him.
On Wednesday, he answered them by name in a 90-second selfie video posted to Instagram.
Addressing “Nick, Gil, Emmanuel and anybody else” who had weighed in, Stephen said the commentary “speaks to a bigger conversation on how you view women in this world and what they’re allowed and what they’re not allowed to do.”
He was speaking to former NBA guard Gilbert Arenas, his former Warriors teammate Nick Young and former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho. Days earlier, Arenas had called Ayesha “the only blemish” in the Curry family on a podcast he co-hosts with Young.
Within hours of the video, Young apologized. Arenas offered a qualified apology that restated his criticism. For a couple who met in a church youth group and have spoken openly about faith in their marriage, the exchange drew a familiar question into public view: who gets to define what a good wife looks like.
The film at the center of the dispute, Second Chance Holiday, premiered Nov. 5 on The Roku Channel. Ayesha plays Chelsey, a dating expert determined to break her “curse” of getting dumped every holiday season. She reconnects with her high school sweetheart, played by Matthew Daddario.
Some commenters questioned the romance as soon as Roku released the trailer Oct. 27. After a clip of the kiss spread following the premiere, Ayesha responded on X. “It’s not even real,” she wrote, adding a laughing emoji and telling critics, “you guys are annoying.”
The conversation moved to podcasts. On an episode of We Said What We Said that aired Saturday, Arenas praised Stephen as a model husband and father before turning to Ayesha. “The only blemish in the family is the wife, in a sense,” he said, “because she doesn’t act like the other superstars’ wives.”
Arenas held up the wives of Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James as his examples. “We don’t want to hear you,” he said. “We just want to know you’re there.” He also made claims about Ayesha’s private life without offering evidence. EEW Magazine Online is not repeating them.
On the Speakeasy podcast, former NFL running back LeSean McCoy questioned the scene, and Acho, his co-host, pointed out that Ayesha was acting. McCoy later said, “Now she did say it’s not real, so if it’s not real, then I respect it.” It was not immediately clear which of Acho’s remarks led Stephen to include him.
Stephen’s video asked the critics for something specific. “Anytime Ayesha Curry shows up in your headline, I’d kindly suggest you just give the happy hands, the congratulations,” he said, “and maybe the apology can be as loud as y’all leading y’all shows with this topic.”
Young answered directly in a clip from Arenas’ Gil’s Arena show. “I’m sorry, man. You my dog. I love you,” he said.
Arenas stood by his central point. He said Stephen “says the right things” and that the family’s reputation is strong. “If you gotta judge this family, the only blemish is the things that his wife has said,” he said. “I’m sorry if he’s offended.”
Journalist Jemele Hill had already pushed back on X. She wrote that Ayesha “was acting before she met Steph,” pointing to childhood commercials and an episode of Hannah Montana, and called the backlash “rooted in a weird sort of misogyny.” She noted that actress Hailee Steinfeld, wife of Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, drew “not one peep” over a far more explicit scene in Sinners.
Ayesha’s credits bear that out. She pursued acting in Los Angeles as a teenager and was working there when she and Stephen began dating. She returned to the screen in Netflix’s Irish Wish with Lindsay Lohan in 2024 and Hulu’s Joy to the World in 2025. Earlier this year, she voiced a character in the animated film GOAT, which Stephen produced. Along the way, she built a career as a best-selling cookbook author, television host and entrepreneur.
Stephen has backed each step. Preparing for his own GOAT voice role, he told PEOPLE in February that Ayesha had given him tips. “She’s been doing it her whole life,” he said. When her film premiered, he posted, “Proud of you my woman.”
Their story started in church. The two met in a youth group in Charlotte, North Carolina, when Stephen was 15 and Ayesha was 14. They married there July 30, 2011, and have four children. Marking their 15th anniversary in July, Stephen wrote that there was “so much more to experience by the grace of God.”
Their faith has not put every believer on their side. Some Christian couples hold that a married actor should kiss no one else on screen. When Kirk Cameron filmed the 2008 faith-based drama Fireproof, his wife, Chelsea Noble, stood in for his co-star during the kissing scene, which was shot in silhouette. “I’ve got a personal conviction that I’m not going to kiss anyone else other than my wife,” Cameron told Baptist Press at the time.
Couples of faith have drawn that line in different places. The Currys drew theirs together, and Stephen has made his support for his wife’s work public at every turn.
He closed his video with a plug. “Thank you for giving a nice shout-out to Second Chance Holiday,” he said, “which y’all can find on Roku, starring Ayesha Curry.”
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5 / 5In the caption, he told followers they don’t have to like or subscribe to every podcast. Then he added a note for his wife: “Keep shining.”
