Tennis star Naomi Osaka, who made headlines by stepping away from competing in the French Open to take a mental health break, was reportedly in tears after a question from a reporter in Cincinnati on Monday.
The Cincinnati inquirer’s Paul Daugherty asked “You’re not crazy about dealing with us, especially in this format, yet you have a lot of outside interests that are served by having a media platform.”
Osaka asked for Daugherty to clarify his question before pausing for a lengthy exchange.
She then appeared to tear up and left to take a brief break only to return and give a thoughtful answer.
“In the first place, I’m a tennis player that’s why a lot of people are interested in me,” Osaka told Daugherty. “I would say in that regard I’m quite different to a lot of people and I can’t really help there are some things that I tweet or some things that I say that kind of create a lot of news articles and things like that and I know that it’s because I’ve won a couple Grand Slams and I’ve gotten to do a lot of press conferences that these things happen, but I would also say I’m not really sure how to balance the two. I’m figuring out at the same time you are."
Following the exchange, Daugherty tells Cook and Joe on 93.7 The Fan that he received thousands of negative tweets and even death threats accusing him of bullying the tennis star.
“I asked the question and she asked me to repeat it twice, I don’t know why she did that, but the result was a very thoughtful answer that helped a lot of people understand her a lot more,” said Daugherty.
Daugherty also says it was Osaka’s agent that claimed it was his question that made him cry, but Daugherty believes it’s possible a question about the devastating earthquake in Haiti.
Daugherty defends his question and asked the question to have a better understanding.
“I didn’t’ bully her, I’ve never bullied anybody in my life,” said Daugherty. “Bullying somebody if you’re a journalist does not usually produce great answers.”
While he stands by his question, Daugherty does say he would’ve changed and would apologize for.
“If I could take that bad, I would and I apologize for that, but not one other thing that I said whether it was asking the question the way I did or writing a column that I wrote, I’m not apologizing for any of it.”
Daugherty adds he knows how serious mental illness is, admitting his birth mother died from suicide when he was 7-years-old.