Gareth Thomas Hits Out At Billy Vunipola Following “Unacceptable” Response
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Unacceptable.
Former Wales international Gareth Thomas has hit out at Billy Vunipola describing his response to being slammed and booed for a homophobic social media post as “unbelievably unacceptable”.
While Vunipola apologised in a statement released earlier in the week, he doubled down on his stance as he accepted the man of the match award after Saracens’ win over Munster yesterday.
Thomas says it’s “very easy” for him to say sorry and for his club to release a statement, and that “nothing has changed” as Vunipola still believes in his words.
“Unbelievably unacceptable.” Thomas said when asked if Vunipola’s response has been unacceptable.
“I think for him to apologise and the club to make a statement, it’s a very easy thing to say sorry, it’s very difficult to mean it.”
“Billy, even though he’s not defending his own words, his beliefs in those words haven’t changed even though he’s made an apology.”
“So for me nothing really has changed in Billy Vunipola’s views.”
“I felt a huge amount of sympathy towards Israel Folau in a sad way that it was such an uneducated response.”
“What he’s said about being gay is almost a choice, is very uneducated.”
“Because I can tell you as a gay man myself, what I’ve been through in my life, if there was a choice, then probably at times I probably would have decided not to have been gay.”
“Seeing Billy’s like and comment on it and then what I feel is a pretty feeble apology by Saracens. I’ve never been told by anyone to go to hell in a very loving way. To me even the apology really doesn’t cut it.”
“You’ve seen the reaction that he’s going to get and that could become quite regular for him if he doesn’t make, what I feel should be, a heartfelt apology.”
"It was such an uneducated response…"@gareththomas14 speaks from the heart as he responds to Billy Vunipola and Israel Folau's recent comments#C4rugby pic.twitter.com/GTj2kdDQEv
— Channel 4 Sport (@C4Sport) April 21, 2019