I was joking about the moon, says Curry
Relax, everyone. Stephen Curry says he was joking. He really does believe that Nasa has sent people to the moon. He’s a non-truther-truther. And everything is fine. Totally fine.
Oh, and he’s taking Nasa up on its invitation to visit the lunar lab at the Johnson Space Center in Houston – ‘‘One thousand per cent,’’ he told ESPN – which, you know, he only received because he denied that the space agency had ever landed on the moon. But it was a joke. Everything is fine.
‘‘Obviously I was joking when I was talking on the podcast,’’ he said.
That conversation took place on the Ringer’s Winging It podcast, on which he appeared with team-mate Andre Iguodala, Atlanta Hawks players Vince Carter and Kent Bazemore and co-host Annie Finberg, and it went completely off the rails. The group went from talking about what sound a dinosaur made to conspiracy theories.
‘‘We ever been to the moon?’’ Curry asked.
Several voices responded, ‘‘No,’’ and Curry said, ‘‘They’re going to come get us. I don’t think so either. Sorry, I don’t want to start conspiracies.’’
Except he did start a conspiracy, one that ignited social media, because Curry, with his trips to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and astutesounding quotes on national politics, has fashioned a brand of a thoughtful and informed athlete who does not shut up and dribble. And then that same athlete said he thought the 1969 moon landing (and all subsequent moon landings) was faked.
‘‘I was silently protesting how stupid it was that people actually took that quote and made it law as, ‘Oh my God, he’s a fake moon landing truther,’ whatever you want to call it, yada, yada, yada,’’ he said. ‘‘So I was silently protesting that part about it, how the story took a life of its own.
‘‘But in terms of the reaction that I’ve gotten, I am definitely going to take [Nasa] up on their offer. I am going to educate myself firsthand on everything that Nasa has done and shine a light on their tremendous work over the years. And hopefully people understand that education is power, informing yourself is power.
‘‘For kids out there that hang on every word that we say, which is important, understand that you should not believe something just because somebody says it. ’’