Ernestine Sclafani Bayless Interview
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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show episode 19.

I'm not sure there will be an episode 20, depending on what's about to transpire here and now. Heck, I'm not even sure I'll still be married about an hour from now. This is going to be different, to say the least. I am joined now by...

My wife, Ernestine. Fancy meeting you here. Thank you for having me. I appreciate this. You sound like a regular guest. I am a guest today. Long time no see. Yeah. It's like last night, maybe? Just for those who don't know this, my wife, Ernestine, has appeared twice live on our show, Undisputed. And even though the first time I was more nervous than I've ever been in my entire career, I must say...

You did okay. You actually did pretty well. I did okay. I broke the record. She did. She actually... You had the highest rated show when I was on your show. It was the highest rated non-NFL Monday segment we had ever had to that point on Undisputed. So congratulations for that. And we'll see how you fare now. But before we get to all of your questions for her and for us, allow me to disqualify us up front because...

I don't want to come across as presenting ourselves as any kind of a model couple because we are just the opposite. We are not. The model couples I sometimes walk by the TV and see as you're watching your Hallmark movies at night when I'm watching my sports. That is not the case here. Just for the record, we do fight. Yes, we do. We do threaten to leave. Oh, yeah. Till death do us part, no. We're about to part now. Yep.

And yet, we're still going strong. It's a miracle. We've been together for 17 years. We have now been married almost seven years. Don't ask me when the anniversary is. I always get it mixed up with all the other days that I'm supposed to honor. I think it's August. August something. Yeah, something.

But here we are, at least for the next hour, and then we'll see if we're still together after this hour. We're still together for the hour, I think, though. So, let's get to your questions for us. And this is going to be an audience-driven show. Okay. Here we go. Let's start with Kayden from Missouri. Okay. Where did you two meet? And what was your first impression of each other? Let me set the scene quickly before you respond. In 2005...

I was doing a show in New York City, your city, called Cold Pizza. I'd been on it for about a year. Before I joined it, I left a five-year relationship that I'd been in and I was free and single in New York City and had not dated a soul because I was not in the relationship business at this point.

I was obsessed with my work, with my show. I had to get up very early as I do now for Undisputed for cold pizza back in those days. And here it was, August, football season was upon us and one fateful morning, fire away.

I booked Kevin Dillon on your show. I was working for a PR agency, largest agency in the world, and I booked Kevin Dillon to promote one of our... The actor from... Kevin Dillon from Entourage. And I booked him on your show, and I was in a long-term relationship, 12 years, with a 70s pop star teen idol, who everyone probably knows, but he will remain nameless for this occasion.

Okay. I happen to know his name. You do know his name, but you said you didn't know who he was, but that's a whole other story. And the relationship was complicated, and I was thinking about getting out. So I told my mother and my sister I was going to a guy's show, and I should put on a short dress and high heels. Maybe I'll meet a guy. Okay.

And you didn't know much about me except I didn't know anything about you except my guy had been in my living room two weeks prior and was watching a sports show in my living room. And I walked through and I said, hey, what what show are you watching? And he said, these two guys debate. This guy is really good, but this guy is an idiot. And the idiot was you.

And so all I thought of was, well, he's kind of cute, but not in my kind of type guy I go after. I go for rock and rollers and kind of bikers and just Steve Perry from Journey-ish kind of guy. Yep. And there you were. But I thought, oh, you were not, you know, you were like a Sears model meets Kevin Costner kind of guy. All right. So I take Kevin Dillon and I'm in the dressing room. Okay.

- Mm-hmm. - And Kevin-- - No, you're in the green room. - I was in the green room. Kevin was on the set and I was with a coworker of mine. - Mm-hmm. - And you walked by the door. - Okay, now my turn. - Oh. This is like he said, she said, but mine is accurate. Yours is probably not accurate, but go ahead. - Mine is about to be very accurate. - Right, okay, yeah. - Because--

In a literal billion to one shot, on that day at Cold Pizza, I accidentally left my notes for what we called then fourth down. We did four debate segments throughout a two-hour show, first, second, third, and fourth down. I left my notes for fourth down in my dressing room, which was we were shooting the show live.

in the basement of the New Yorker Hotel in New York City. It's at 34th and 8th. - Right. - And you have to go down a long hall from the studio to where the dressing rooms are. And along that long hall, you have to pass the green room where you were stationed at that point.

I literally was running because I had maybe three minutes to retrieve my notes and run back before we're on live. And as I passed the green room, I looked to my right and saw you. Right. And caught your eye. And you said, hi, as if you knew me. But that's the way you are. I didn't know you, but I just said hi because you were walking by. And I said, do I know you? No, and then you said to me, hi.

Oh, hi. Who are you here with? What do you do? Where do you live? But you acted like you knew him. Well, I just said hi, and then I said I'm with Kevin Dillon. But you said I'm Ernestine. I said I'm Ernestine. You are? And then there was no last name. It was like Madonna or Cher. It was like I'm Ernestine. It's not Ernestine. And then you said to me, who are you with? I said I'm with Kevin Dillon. And then you said, where do you live? But I wasn't doing anything with Kevin Dillon. I didn't even know he was on the show. No, he was...

You were going to teach him how to play golf or something. No, I thought that was Jay Crawford. Oh, Jay was on. Okay. Anyway. And he was promoting Hanes or Champion t-shirts. I think it was Hanes Underwood. Hanes. Go ahead. And then I said, you asked me where I lived and I was so nervous. This whole conversation is going to have to- Like two minutes. Not even under two. Right. And then you said, where do you live? And I lived on 52nd and 1st. And I said, I lived on 51st and 2nd. And then you said-

"Oh, okay." And then I said, "Well, if you ever need PR, here's my card." And I gave you my card. And after you left the dressing room, the green room, my coworker turned to me and said, "You're going to marry that guy." And I said, "Are you insane?" I'm dating somebody else and he's not, I don't even know who he is. And it never dawned on me, you were the guy that my guy was watching in the living room.

And then after that, I walked to my best friend's office, who still is my best friend, a doctor in New York. And I said, I met this guy, but I don't know anything about him. I don't know if he's married. I don't know what his story is and whatever. And then she said, oh, OK. And then that was it. And then later that day,

You sent me an email and you said a couple of days, but go ahead. I thought it was I think I have the email. I could look at the date. But I thought and you said on my own show, I said, no, I said, oh, you said, oh, it was nice meeting you. Sorry, I had to run. And I said, oh, you were dressed. So you look like Dapper Dan or something. And then that was it. And then that went on for two went back and forth for two weeks until finally, thankfully, another billion to one shot. It was a Friday evening.

And I had a co-worker, a female, who I would just platonically go to movies with occasionally because we both liked movies. And we had set up for us to go to the 7 o'clock movie that Friday night. And she stiffed me. I don't know what happened. And she was nowhere to be found, faithfully. Maybe it was a God thing. I don't know. But I finally decided, hmm, I don't have anything planned tonight.

And this is back in the day still a voicemail. And at Cold Pizza, I had a weird voicemail that I never checked. I don't think I'd ever checked it in the whole first year I'd been there. And for some reason, I checked it and you were on it. Well, because...

It was two weeks of you and I going back and forth about we made up this dog that we were married and we were going through a divorce and all this whatever. And then I thought, this is really weird. This guy never asks me out. He just emails me back and forth. I wasn't in the dating game. Right, but then my mother said to me, well, you need to find out what his story is. Because if he's married and whatever it is, then just, and I left a voicemail. And I said, hey, if you want to talk, you can call me. And that was when you checked your voicemail once in a billion. I called. I called.

- Right. - And we wound up talking-- - Stay on the phone for like three hours. - Three hours on Friday night. - You were watching a Yankees game. I remember you emailed me and you said, "Oh, oh, you won't mind if I'm just watching a little game. Little did I know what my fate was gonna be that it was gonna turn into. That was my life was watching games."

And then I said, "Oh no, I like the Yankees." And then we stayed on the phone and we talked about "I Love Lucy" and Woody Allen movies. - Which was your favorite show and still you're obsessed with "I Love Lucy" and I know every episode. - Woody Allen I loved and we had a lot in common. - Weirdly because I'm from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. - Right, and I'm from New York. - And you're from New York, from Long Island. - Right. - Except your mother is Jewish and your father was Italian.

And it's about as far, it's like the other side of the world from where I'm from. So we were a complete mismatch who matched. - Somehow. - I don't know how. - I think it was 'cause of "I Love Lucy." Really, the "I Love Lucy" got me and the Woody Allen. - Because you still have all things Lucy all over your room. - Right, I have everything Lucy. But I figured if you liked Lucy, then you were pretty much okay. And Woody Allen. - And Woody Allen, so I was okay. - You were okay. - All right, let's go to question number two.

This is from Nick from Waterloo, Ontario. What inspired you, Ernestine, to write a book about what it's like living with Skip?

There was no way getting around it that I couldn't write a book. This was about three years? Three years ago, right before COVID. Because I was doing public relations for all of these years. And then finally, when we moved from New York to L.A., I was still doing public relations. But I always had in the back of my head this book idea because I had spoken with so many women throughout the years of dating you that were in the same boat as I am. But only mine is magnified a thousand percent.

And it was about how do you deal with a guy who likes sports or a female who likes sports if you're a guy and you don't like sports? And I thought maybe now is the time to write this book. So. OK, back to our early relationship. Yeah.

Right away, you made it very clear you're not a sports fan. No. I've never been to a football game in my life to this day. Except, like the line you used. Except when I played clarinet in the marching band. Yeah, there's balls. Balls for those people who never bought this book. It's still alive and it's still, it's a good read. By the way, the book is a double entendre title because it's about ball games and also about testosterone. Right. Which is...

spills all over our house. And also, you have to have balls to stick with someone like you. That is correct. So there you go. So it's a triple on top. So it's balls all the way around. There's balls everywhere in this book. Right. But the point was, you made it clear you didn't like sports, which attracted me even more to you because if I'm away from my games and my...

my obsession of debating sports on television, there are times in my life that I don't want to talk sports with anybody. I want to watch a movie. I want to watch a TV series, or I want to do something that doesn't involve sports. Well, you said that to me on the first date when we went for pizza. Remember, we went for pizza, whole wheat pizza on First Avenue. And you said to me, well, I'm glad that you don't like sports because sometimes I like to get away from sports.

But I also told you that fateful night, which you don't like me to bring up. You will always be number one in my life. Sports is always number one in my life. But I told you if this goes anywhere, which I had no idea it was going to go here. I don't even listen. I discount that. Well, I told you straight from my heart, if this goes any place, you'll always be number two to my career because I live for my career. And you accepted that. Now you say, well, you're

- It's not like I accepted it. It wasn't like, oh, okay, I'm so subservient, I'm gonna accept this. - Well, at least I disqualified myself going in. - It was, no, it was like, I liked you. I didn't know where it was gonna go. And I really just kind of pushed that under the rug because I never really thought that you and I were going to go further than a couple of dates. - And then ironically, the first movie we go to is the worst movie we ever went to in our lives. - A flower, what was it? - "Broken Flowers" with Bill Murray. - It was horrible. - It's unwatchable. - Horrible. - It's just, it's some art house sort of-- - We walked out. Didn't we walk out?

I think I wanted to, but I think, yeah, I don't know. I think we, we toughed it out just to see if it redeemed itself. And it, you always want to wait and see how bad it gets. I'm saying let's just, so we can laugh at it. Yeah. Right. But the first thing you did that won my heart was you said, well,

you're obsessed in college football and pro football are starting and and I can have you a little bit on Saturday But I can't have you at all on Sunday, right? You on your own. I've got the pack to get the package the what was the ESPN? college That if I were at your apartment on Saturday, which I started to be every Saturday I would have

to every game that was being played. But I was so new to it. I never knew that the college started at 10 in the morning and went till midnight. And then, so first I thought, oh, you're going to watch a couple of games. Then it was like four o'clock, he's still watching games. Then it's eight o'clock, we're ordering Chinese food. Now it's like midnight and they're like, is this ever going to end? Mm-hmm.

Then I started to understand what this was all about. Then Sunday, it would pick back up again with NFL. And then it was from 10 in the morning, 10-1-4-8, 10-1-4-8. It never stopped. In the East, correct. Right, right. It never stopped. Then I got the full picture of what the sports world was about. And that brought me to why I wrote the book. And the driving force of balls is...

what haunts your existence, which you had to learn from the beginning, which are my jinx rules, right? It's insanity. It's insanity. And what did you learn from the start? I learned that you're insane. Okay. Then I also learned that there's no, there's no, there's, there's no understanding of this jinx thing because it's not real, but yet how can I change a game that

that's taking place in Dallas or in Braintree, Massachusetts, right? Foxborough. Foxborough, whatever. And then I'm in New York City. And because I turn the light off in the kitchen, I've now changed the game. How in the world can that? I don't know. I should go. I should be at the Mayo Clinic curing cancer. And I should hopefully cure COVID and AIDS because I have

that power i don't know how i have that power it's like insanity and even last night hazel wanted to leave the room that our little maltese and i'm in the living room and i see normally one yeah miami so i'm sitting in the living room i had the game on because i like jimmy butler and i had the game on in the living room and then usually around 8 30 usually send the dog out hazel comes and sits with me and all of a sudden hazel ran out a little earlier and i thought she escaped on her own hazel

is coming with me and all of a sudden you came running out. Hazel, Hazel, you need to come back with me. And I said, oh, you're using her as the Buddha. Because? She's the Buddha tonight. She's the Buddha, but there were three minutes left in the game and all of a sudden Jalen Brown starts bombing threes and so does Peyton Pritchard. And all of a sudden I said, I'm

Right, you need Hazel. She slipped out the door when I used the bathroom. Because she can't take it anymore. The dog is about to go jump out the window because the dog can't take it. No, she loves to watch games. Does she not just sit at my feet watching games? You have her sequestered. She can't leave. She's trying to scratch on the door to come out. Oh, she does.

- You hear it and you're like muzzling her to stay down. - That's a lie, you're exaggerating. But I did go retriever. And then what happened right on schedule? - They won. - Jimmy Butler says, "I got this and game over and we win cruising and I picked the heat so I won game one, right?"

I don't know how you can be so smart about things and really believe that. Because it's just so, I write in the book these jinxes. And then when I was compiling the jinxes, it was getting worse and worse and worse, realizing all this. Well, as you always ask me, how can you believe in God, which I do. Right. And then when I say to you, oh, you know what? I prayed to God last night that your team wins. Then you say to me, don't do that. Well, don't do that. It works on both ways. It's not like just one way to God. No, but jinx is like negative energy. It's like,

It's like an evil force. But then I say to you, but then I say to you, what do you think? But then I say to you all the time, do you think these players want to lose? Like, they go into playing, say, like, you know, Chris Paul, he wanted to win more than anything. You think he went in and played, he said, you know, I want to lose today. No. They all want to win. So it's not their fault they're not playing well. It just happens.

- And you always say, it's not my fault that I picked Miami to win, right? - Right, I say, you can't control the guys that are playing terrible or maybe whatever. - No, but I can be smart enough to pick the right team. - But you can't predict it. - Well, that's why

There's a Las Vegas. That's why there are those giant casinos because everybody keeps betting on games they can't consistently win. Right, but it's irrational. Okay, but on Undisputed, I'm up like 92 cases of Diet Mountain 2 on Shannon Shaw. Just because Shannon, unfortunately, has picked the wrong team. Okay, but I fortunately picked the right team. It's just like a spin of the roulette wheel. No, it's not. So you get to win, so you get the do. That is not true.

I'm smart enough to pick the right team. It's not a science. Well, you have to have some insight into it and you have to have a sixth sense about which team is playing better and which team will play better. But if a guy gets hurt on the field and they're taking him... Okay, I can't control it. But a guy gets hurt on the field, like, I'm very emotional about it. Oh, my God, do you think he's going to walk again? He's paralyzed. Skip is, oh, there goes my season. I'm like, the guy is in the hospital. Then I ask him a day later, is that guy okay?

What guy? The guy that they brought out on the stretcher who has a thumb up, did he live? Yes. I think so. It's like there's no loyalty or love for these people. It's just you see them as a commodity. I don't. I have a heart for these people on the field. But in the end...

I care about picking the game right because you don't understand what it feels like to go in there on Monday morning and sit in my seat and be shamed by the guy across from me. Do you know that I have to go in tomorrow and I got to eat crow? I hear it. I know what it is. And then I say, well, what can you do? They lost. That's not what I want to hear. But this is a boy thing versus a girl thing to me. It's a human thing. But the picking games, that's male pride that I picked it right.

And I have to go live with it when I have to eat crow on live national TV. There's no way anyone in this world can predict how a player is going to play or a team unless they're throwing the game, unless they got payola or something. I'm up 92 cases. Poor Shannon. It's just because he's just picked the wrong team. It's not his fault. That's his fault. You have to know what's going on. He's in the Hall of Fame. I'm not.

Yeah, but so, oh, so he gets to lose every time because he's in the Hall of Fame. No, I'm just saying. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I'm up 92 cases on the Hall of Famer, right? It's just where the wheel stopped. Okay, how many times have I shown you that we come in from eating dinner or whatever and we turn on the game? It's important. And I say, watch what's about to happen. Yeah, watch what's going to happen.

And either my team is down or up and it immediately switches because I've joined the fray. I sit down and I say, watch what's about to happen. My team's up 10 and all of a sudden it's down 10. And I say, did you see what just happened? Right. And then last night...

I go in your room to go over today's questions. By the way, I have my own, because we're about to get to this, but because I have to get up at 2 a.m. Oh, I know that. I have my own bedroom for the weekdays that's my man cave office. No, I know. So you're in your man cave. So Skip said, hey...

Why don't you come in? We'll go over the questions. I said, okay. So I sit down. We're going over the questions. Oh, that's a good one. And then Jimmy Butler. Okay, where was I when you came in? You were sitting on the bed. I was sitting on the bed. Where do I usually sit? On your desk, by your chair. Okay, I sat at my desk for the whole first half. And what happened? I got blown out. They were losing. Okay, so then I come in and I say, okay, so you want to go over the questions? I switched to the bed and the whole game switched. And then the second quarter ended and they were down. And then, then, then...

The third quarter starts and I see out of the corner of my eye, oh, they're winning. And then I knew I had to leave because otherwise I'm going to get roped into making me sit because you don't let me out of the room. Well, you wanted to get up and I said maybe you should stay. So I said to him, I have to leave right now because otherwise I'm not going to be able to eat dinner because you're going to make me stay in this room until they start losing. But I did make Hazel stay. Well, Hazel, yeah. And she was there. She doesn't have a seat.

Say, she's a dog. What is she going to do? Say, let me out? She loves sports, unlike her mom. She loves sports. She loves sports. And by the way. That dog comes out. Her head is spinning. She doesn't know. Should I go to the bathroom? Should I sit down? We have to tell the all-time jinx story, thanks to you.

that happened in my guy Tom Brady's game. This is the end of the 2018 season. It's the AFC Championship game in early 2019, January, maybe the 20th of 2019. I remember. At Kansas City, cold day in Kansas City. Right.

big underdog Patriots on the road against my homeboy, as Sharon calls him, Patrick Mahomes. And Brady goes up seven to nothing and Brady drives him down again and has it third and goal from the one yard line, from the one yard line to go up 14 to nothing. Well, I'd ask you that day, just please leave me be. Just, just, I'm going to shut the door and just leave me alone. Don't, don't open my door because we got jinxes operating and they're ready to pounce on me if you open my door. Just leave me alone.

Leave it alone and I'll see you when it's over and we'll be just fine, right? So what do you choose to do? - No, okay, back up.

An envelope comes from like, I don't know, FedEx or something on a Sunday. It wasn't a FedEx. It was mail. No, it was some kind of certified. It was like certified mail on a Sunday. So I think, oh my God, something is bad because certified mail only comes as... But I don't know that. I get the certified envelope. I'm like, oh my God, somebody died. So quickly, I go and I knock on the door and I open it. You open the door. I said, you got the certified...

Get out. What are you doing? I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He fumbled. He didn't fumble. He stands up. This is Thomas Edward Patrick Brady Jr. I know who he is. He stands up at the line of scrimmage and commits the ultimate cardinal sin that I'll bet he's never committed in his whole career. Third and goal from the one-yard line, going in for a touchdown. He stands up and throws it to

Gronkowski, except he throws it right to the linebacker, Reggie Ragland, who intercepts it five yards deep in the end zone and curls up into a little ball. Because I brought the envelope in. You did that. And I said it's right. As soon as you open the door, I said, no, no, no, no, don't do that. And right on time, he throws it to Reggie Ragland. I've never seen anything like it before. So this is like the movie, if you ever saw the movie Glass Doors, right? So if you get to the subway, okay, and if you either make the left, your life goes one way, or the right.

the right, your life goes the other way. So had I not walked in that door, Tom Brady would have not thrown that to Gronkowski. - It would not have happened. - I can't. - I've proven it to you. I demonstrate it to you time and time again, and you won't honor the jinxes, although you've been better lately, I would say. - No, I've been better lately, I just stay away. I've had, now I don't have any, there's no thought of, oh, I feel so bad he's losing. I just remove myself from the situation.

Back to the questions. Back to Jean from Florida. This is for you, Ms. Ernestine. Right. What do you think of LeBron James? Just quick thought. Obviously, I've had my issues with LeBron as a basketball player, just on the basketball court. Right.

I think he's a lousy shooter from three and from the free throw line. And I question whether he was born with a Jordan-esque clutch gene. And I get sick and tired of hearing my partner on Undisputed try to proclaim LeBron James the GOAT over Michael Jeffrey Jordan. Phony GOAT, maybe. But that's my take on LeBron that you've heard. You do watch our show. I appreciate that.

But I don't even know. You and I have never spoken about LeBron at home. I don't bring it home. So I'm curious. You don't bring it home. Well, I don't. I don't bring my work. You don't bring it home. OK, I live it at home, but we don't talk about. Have we ever had a long conversation? They should do a reality show of us because, man, that would be a really good one. Until this moment, have we ever had a long conversation about LeBron James? I'm not even sure what you think. No, I don't bring it up.

Okay. Because I'm afraid. Okay. I like LeBron. I'm sorry. I'm going to admit it. I do like LeBron James. I'm not surprised. I think that he's done wonderful things for being a role model. Yes. I give you that. I know he curses occasionally, but everybody curses occasionally. He curses a lot. You curse occasionally. Every once in a while I do.

But I think that he's a really, he seems to be a nice guy. He's always, whenever, even if they're the game and they talk to him, he's really calm and he's really nice. And he, you know, he tries. And I don't have, I don't have hatred for him. They all try. But he, he's a very, he's, he's built schools.

and he's done all these wonderful things. I promise. Yes. And he's, you know, I don't have a hatred. I saw him walking on Central Park South one day. I was walking and I was going to say hi to him, but I thought he was going to punch me if I told him who I was. Yes. So I just looked at him from afar and I said, wow, he's really tall. He's really tall. He's 6'9". I don't,

have a problem with him. I think he's a nice man. I would like to meet him and say hello. I think he's a nice man. I would like to go on record. He could call me. He could say hello. I don't care. I like him. All right. Fair enough. School is back and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at dicks.com.

This episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the all-new Prologue EV, there's a lot that can impress you about it. There's the class-leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design, and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com slash EV to see offers. Next question. Okay.

Monty from one of my favorite towns, Thousand Oaks, California. You've never quite been there. We went out the other night close to there, but Thousand Oaks, California. Monty asks, how do you, Ernestine, react to the kinds of reactions Skip gets with his sports opinions? Fire away.

Well, I'm very protective over people that I love and I care about, whether it's my mother, my family, you, Hazel. So I don't like people that talk about you without knowing you. I mean, nobody really knows anybody on TV. You just see them from afar.

But the time that we were at your hair place and you were upstairs getting your hair cut in the city. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yep. And I was waiting for you downstairs in the lobby. In the lobby. And the two guys came out that worked up in the hair place. And one said to the other, oh, do you know who's up there? One guy was the, like, guard. Yeah. And he said, oh, do you know who's up there? And the other guy said, Skip Bayless. And then he said, oh, I can't stand him. And I overheard him. And I went over to him and I said, oh, who's up there? Skip Bayless? And he said, yes. I said, what do you have against Skip Bayless? Yes.

And he said, "Oh, I just think he's an idiot." I said, "Do you know him personally?" - I think he said I was an asshole. - Well, he said that you were an asshole. - Okay. - And he said, I said, "Do you know him personally?" He said, "No." I said, "Why don't you shut your mouth?" I said, "Because if you don't know somebody, why go talking about them if you don't know them? If you know them, then you have a reason to talk about them. Until then, you should not say anything bad about them." And he just said,

Oh, and he didn't know who I was, and then I just walked away. And then you came down and you said to me, why are you doing that to me because you're going to get me in a fight? Mm-hmm. Well... But you didn't get into a fight. But when I walked by the guard, he was looking at me with eyes saucers. Right, because I reamed him out. You reamed him out. So... I will attest, she is not to be trifled with. I don't take it. No. And so if... I don't like when somebody...

you know, sports is one thing and you don't like a team or you don't like a player and you disagree. But when you start getting really into horrible things that you want to do to somebody, it's just horrible. It's like, and I'm not a big social media person and I only started doing it with my book, but some of the comments that I read, I don't read them anymore. They're just so horrible. And I don't know why people have to write horrible things about eat a sandwich and whatever it is. It's like,

It's just so terrible. What did I tell you from the start? You just can't read them. I don't read them. I don't care what people write. I don't care what they think. You cannot expose your own psyche, especially knowing you the way you are, to that kind of venom. It's just a horrible thing. It's horrible. They think that people don't have feelings and even...

I'm not a big Kardashian person at all. I don't watch the show. I worked with one one time, but I don't have anything. But the things people write and say, they're human beings. Everybody has feelings, even though the people that write them, they just think that it's OK. So that's a whole nother story. OK. And yet I want you to know how much I love you for defending me. And I feel for you because you do love

get my Google alerts just on anything that's written about me because I don't really want to know about it. And so you occasionally tell me about something when it's a big story and you get

50 Google Alerts where it's all over everywhere and you say, "Did you know that?" Right. "I need to know that for tomorrow's Undisputed." So you're sort of my eyes and ears, but unfortunately your eyes and ears get bombarded by the negativity. Or if a player says something about you. Yes. You know. Okay, we got it. Okay, next topic is not a fan question. It's more our pet topic. And it concerns

my love-hate relationship with golf, with playing golf since high school. And you have experienced it. I am sometimes pretty good at golf and other times I'm shockingly awful at golf. And you have seen me break 80 and you've seen me break clubs when I don't even break 90. So you've seen the best and the worst of me. I fight with myself, as you well know.

My handicap is me. It's my negativity, my pessimism, my self-destruction, as you well know. But the amazing development to me was

In the first year that we knew each other, you went back with me as I go every usually July or August to where I'm from, Oklahoma City, and I play golf on the courses I grew up on with my high school friends, Craig Humphreys, Perry Littlepage, Craig's son, Sam. You know them all. Right. And right away, you said,

You'd go. You don't play golf. You don't really want to play golf. You'll putt with me, and you're a good putter because you have good hand eye. Thank you. But you don't want to play. You just want to drive the cart. I like listening to the birds, and I like to see the green grass, and it's very tranquil to me. It's like a zen moment. Until you start yelling, then the zen goes really fast away. I understand that. But right away, it surprised me that my buddies that I grew up with

readily accepted you as part of the male culture of us getting back together, trying to recapture our youth or whatever we're trying to do. I'm not sure what we're doing. It's just like same time next year. Let's do it again on the course we grew up on, which is Lincoln Park East and West course. You know them all, you know, every hole on the course. And

I thought maybe they would be a little offended by it. Like, we don't want her just sitting in the midst because we can't really be ourselves. And yet they welcomed you as one of the guys right from day one. And you were comfortable with them and vice versa. They don't like it when I get mad. I don't like it when I get mad. But the point was you went along for the literal ride. And you have played with me constantly.

100,000 holes when we go on vacation to Palm Springs or wherever. You'll go out with me just, yeah, we used to go to Puerto Rico. Yeah, when we were in New York City, we used to go. And you would go every time and ride 18 holes with me without complaint. Now, you might be on the phone occasionally. You might be at work. Well, Palm Springs at 122 degrees where they were making you, he wants to play in 122 degrees that they make him sign a waiver that if we both drop dead on the golf course, it would be okay because he just refuses to not play. Okay, but you went.

Yeah, it was terrible. It was like I was seeing like double out there because it was so hot, like a mirage. But we would take plenty of water, right? Yeah, I drank so much water, I was floating. It was terrible. All right, which brings us to one golf story that was, it's now funny, but was pretty scary at the time. Yeah, I got a scar on my leg from it. You got a scar on your leg. Okay, so...

We're playing my favorite golf course and we're about to play my favorite hole in the whole world. Right. And it is the 15th hole on the East course at Lincoln Park. It's a public course, but it's a great course and I think you like it. It's a pretty rolling course. Yeah, I like it. It's beautiful. It's beautiful and it's incredibly well kept. Yeah. It's to me the best public course I've ever played and I had the fortune of growing up on it.

And I go back to play it because it's really fun to play and it fits my eye. So now we're on the 14th hole and I hit, for once, a big drive. I'm right in the middle of the fairway. I'm looking at a sand wedge to the green because I just crushed it.

and it plays uphill to an uphill green that tilts away. And I hit it on these screws right at the flag. And I thought that is going to be close and I'm going to have a short birdie putt. - Yes. - We get all the way up to the green and I realized that for the first time in my life, I have somehow managed to fly the flag, fly the pin and it goes in the back sand. - Right. - Well, it's death because now you're,

the back trap is actually above the green. And so if you blast out of it, it's gonna roll and roll and roll. And of course I blast out and it wouldn't stop. And it rolled down into the front sand, the front bunker. Well, now I'm just furious. And I go down and I leave one in the bunker, the first one, and then I blast out and I'm like 20 feet away. So my birdie has turned into a double bogey.

Right, but meanwhile, I was sitting in the golf cart and I felt bad for you because you're yelling and you're like, oh. I didn't yell. I didn't yell. You were fuming. You were fuming. Okay, and I figured, you know, I've been sitting in this golf cart the whole time. I should really support him and show that I feel bad. So you kind of walked in the hill. No, this was before you hit it the second time. I said, oh, maybe I should just stand there. So then you would say, oh, look, she's supporting me. I'm out here.

and i remember i had shorts on and i had sneakers on and i walk over and i'm just standing at the edge just looking la la la and then you hit it again and then you got really mad and then you threw the golf club okay i said because i was done with my scene right but you didn't just say oh i just hit my sandwich for sure like it was like uh what are those things okay i i tossed it up to you and it helicopters it was like a boomerang so the boomerang is coming and it's going to hit me right in

the leg. Okay, it didn't. It hit beside you and it hit on the end of its handle and it bounced straight right in the blade of the sandwich. Right, and this was your sandwich that you had from 1872. It was like the first ones they made like cavemen put it together with like iron or something. No, in Scotland the shepherds put it together. Yeah, it was like a piece of giant metal. It could

It's a Ben Hogan special. It's called a Sure Shot, and it's a relic, but it works. It was a relic hitting my knee, my shin. And the relic is by far the most open blade of any club in my bag because it sits open like that. I know, and it splits open my shin. And it has a, you know...

it will cut through the skin. Thank God I had a, I think I had a, didn't they, I had a shot. Remember, did they give me, I had gotten a tetanus shot not that far before that. Okay. So thank God because I'm dead right now. Okay, so it hits your chin and it opened it up. Yeah. Blood coming down my leg. It went everywhere. Yeah.

Blood. And then your friend Craig, who was really nice, he says, oh, my God, Ernestine, you're bleeding. I'm like, oh, my God, it's bleeding all down my leg into my sneaker. And then he says, here, take my towel. It's a master's towel. Master's towel. It must have been from the year 12 masters. It had more dirt on it. I'm wrapping my leg up with a hole with the dirtiest towel. That's true. How I didn't get like...

I don't know what. Okay, now for the moment of truth. In our relationship, we're now on the 15th tee. Right, then I call my friend Laura, my doctor in New York, and I go, my leg is bleeding. She's like, okay, you need to elevate it. So there I am with my foot up.

up on the golf, the end of the golf cart, and then you got me ice and I wrapped it with ice. Yeah, with the dirty red and the ice and I'm bleeding. And she's like, listen, if you could stop the blood, it'll coagulate. And then you say to me, can we finish the rest of the holes? No, I told you it's my favorite hole. It's the 15th hole. This is all I care about. Now you're scarred because of my leg. Wait a second. Yeah.

So now it's a par five that goes downhill to the left, a dog leg left. But if you really crush it, it'll catch the hill and roll down. And you can, even me, and I'm not that long, but I can reach it in two because it plays pretty short. So I love the whole, I've eaten it up. I've made eagles. I probably made three eagles on it. I've made...

nest full of birdies. So I want to play this hole. So I'm asking you, are you okay for me to play this hole? Yeah, you asked me, am I okay? What am I supposed to say? I'm bleeding and you're like pleading with me and all your friends are standing around and Craig and his son or whoever it was. I was like...

Yeah, okay, I could go ahead. And I could just go in the bathroom and get me some of those brown, really hard paper towels that I could wrap it up in my legs. So then I would continue. It's like chasing me from the brown towels. But without complaint, you just let us play? No, I let you go without a complaint. And I just figured, God, help us. I hope, oh, no, am I going to land in an Oklahoma hospital? They're going to stitch me up or something. I'm thinking about this. I used to model my legs. Now I can't do modeling anymore because my legs are now completely destroyed from a golf club.

Then we get finished. - We get finished. - And then you have the nerve. I figured let's go to Rite Aid, I can get some band aids. And then you have the nerve and you say to me, "Do you mind if I go putting now?" - I putted miserably. - Putting? - I thought, well, I just wanna practice my putting. - Putting. - And you seemed okay. - It's 100 degrees. My leg is like bleeding. It's like now purple blood coming down. And I said, what did I say? "Sure."

And that was the moment when I said, I think I'm going to put a ring on her finger. Yeah. Yeah. Put a golf club on her finger. That was incredible. And then we went to Rite Aid and we tried to get character and backbone. That's it. OK. Well, it turned out OK.

Yeah, I got a scar. It's not a big deal. But now it's gone away a little bit. You probably deserve to have four or five stitches, but you didn't. Right. I should have got. But we went to Rite Aid and we could barely find like butterflies to put on my. And then you were like, come on, we got to hurry up because we have to go to dinner with Craig. Don't worry about it. I'll just be limping the entire time. Ultimate trooper. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, God, for Ernestine. I don't know. If it was me today, I don't know. I don't think you would have been on the golf course by yourself. I would have been back at the ranch. Back to your questions. Back to Miguel from Arizona. What do you, Ernestine, do?

When the Cowboys games are on. Run, run really fast. Run. Especially out of all the games that you watch. And I know them all. And I have watched more games than probably any woman on this planet. Short of maybe, I don't know, analysts or Aaron Andrews or someone else.

When the Cowboys are on, I try to get out of the house. You do? And I monitor by watching ESPN's scores because you've taught me how to do the, you know, can you... But you just watch it on your phone? Yes. And I, before, if I'm at the grocery or I'm at the mall or something... And you and your sister... And then my sister is with me and I say, wait a second. And she'll say, are you going to go back home? Wait a minute. Let me look. Okay.

oh no, the Cowboys are losing, oh no, I cannot go home yet. So I do not go home until, and then if they really do lose the entire game, then I try to sneak in without you knowing that I came home and I go in the back bedroom because I don't want to hear you now, the wrath of you telling me play by play of what happened and how you lost. And that tomorrow you have to go in and you got to eat dirt. And the one point of disagreement that we've had from the start is,

that when they do lose, when I'm at my lowest, I always say, well, give me just a little sympathy. Oh, oh, oh, please. This is like, I think I wrote that in the book. That is the biggest crock going. Like, if I had a dollar for every time I said to you, and you could ask my sister, unfortunately, my mom's not here anymore, but my mother would laugh if I called her right now and said, how many times I've said to you, ah,

I'm sorry, you team loss. I'm sorry, you team loss. And then after a while, it's like, well, why am I sorry your team loss? I didn't I didn't make them lose, but I try to be nice. And then what really gets me is when you say to me, you know, you could at least say that you're sorry. And I say, do you know how many times do you say, oh, no, just a little supportiveness would be great if you could just be just a little.

Oh, you should. It's devastating. God only knows. My whole life is on the line. My pride is on the line. Then pick a better team. Then pick the other team because they seem to stink. Well, they do. I mean, really, you keep going on Dak Prescott and the other one. Zeke. Zeke, you know, they haven't been playing well. Why do you stick with these teams that aren't playing?

aren't playing well. Because it's in my blood. But then you choose. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They're going to lose. You're going to get mad. You're going to tell me, say you're sorry. It's like it goes around and around and around. Okay, next year I'm out on them. I don't even care anymore. I'm sick of them. I'm tired of them. I bought you the helmet, that floating halogen helmet. I bought you the cowboy's helmet, right? And I used to use it. I bought you a cowboy's pillow. Even my friends buy you cowboy merchandise. They do, unfortunately. Hazel had a

cowboy jersey that got thrown out yeah i'm done with them so you don't have to worry next year you can either come and watch them because i don't even care even in this book the artist put uh did you buy it here here oh here i just turned to it this is a funny this is a funny one did you buy the cowboys bread maker on amazon yet because everything has to be by the cowboys that was in the book okay it's funny next question let's try daniel from tampa oh yeah

How do Skip's sleeping habits affect you, Ernestine? And for the record, for years, I was on a show called First Take on ESPN. I got up at 5 a.m. in the East to do the show that started at...

10 in the east, right? And I needed every second of that. Now I get up at 2 a.m. in the west to do a show that starts a half hour earlier, 9.30 eastern time, obviously 6.30 out here in LA, and I'm

it makes for a crazy lifestyle because I try to be in bed by nine to get up at two. I also try to take a quick nap in the afternoon. It's the only way I can work through it. But you try to bend your schedule closer to mine. So around nine, you're starting to wind down. Well, it's only because I don't sleep. Granted, I had makeup, extra makeup today because I don't sleep. So you got to cover some of the bags and the circles. But

You know, I grew up in Long Island, grew up in New York. My lifestyle in New York before we moved out here is very different than people who live out here. I would go to the theater. I'm used to eating dinner at 11 o'clock when you come out of the theater. Or if I was working and just going home, I'd relax. I'd eat dinner at 9 o'clock every night. Now...

It's really hard to eat dinner at like 4:30 in the afternoon unless you live in Fort Lauderdale and you're doing an early bird special. But I mean, and then you, I have to talk to you as though we live on alternate planets.

Skip, do you want to eat dinner yet? It's 4:30. It's 7:30. What are you talking about? Because I stay on East Coast time. You live like on another clock. Meanwhile, I've got two clocks in my office, East Coast, West Coast, and then I'm still working and living in LA in the real world. So I'm living LA time and I try to go to bed by 9:30, 10 o'clock and then

at two o'clock you get up and you're on the other side of the house because you sleep on the other side of the house. And then in the weekdays, right? And then then I hear you undo the alarm that we have an alarm. That's when I'm security right at four at 405. And even though I'm supposed to be sleeping, I can hear it. Do do do do do do do do do do do. So I'm up at

I hear you sometimes at 3 and I go to the bathroom. Then at 4:05, I hear you leave. Then I try to sleep till 5 or 5:30. So I'm getting up every hour on the hour. So how can you sleep?

And then you go, I have to get some rest in the afternoon. Well, what about me? I've been up like a zombie. Like, I just keep going. And I don't know how you do it because you never take a nap. I've never seen you take a nap. I never take a nap unless I'm sick or something. But in what have we been together? 17 years. I've never known you to be sick.

Seriously, I got to knock on wood here. That's a formica. Get some wood. Yeah. Unless I mean, that time I was hit by the car. But that was like an unnatural sick. But you're scared to death of covid. Right. I've had it twice. Right. Yet you didn't get it. Well, that's because I've never known you to have a cold.

No, I don't get sick like that. I'm very strong. I take care of myself. Okay, so I guess it's okay. But the sleeping thing is really... Well, sometimes, though, you don't know. I'll be sitting at my desk at 4.30 in the afternoon, and all of a sudden, I just put my head down. I'm just sleeping. I wonder why. Okay, I don't blame you. Okay. Because it's like getting 120 minutes of sleep a night is not good. Okay, but by the way, you have the ultimate watchdog, our little Maltese. Yeah. She's not so little. Right. Hazel. Right. Your daughter, my... Yeah. Obviously, my daughter. Your daughter, yeah. And...

Hazel, if she hears the slightest little twitch of a noise outside or anywhere, she's up looking and ready to growl. - Well, she doesn't sleep either. She really doesn't want to get up at four o'clock or she hears the alarm too and she just turns over. I hear her go, "Ugh." She just makes a moan and turns over. So sleeping in our house is not something we do. I tell people you can call us any time of the night 'cause we're up all night. - Okay. - That's true.

Let's try another topic that is a pet topic for us without an audience question. This concerns our friend Lil Wayne. Right. And just for the record, I first met Lil Wayne when he appeared on First Take with me. This is pre-Steven A as my partner. I think it was 2008 because that Carter...

2003 was about to drop. I think it was 2008. And guess why he was on first take? Because I booked him. Because Ernestine booked him because she was trying to book rappers because I really enjoyed Nelly on the show. You booked Bow Wow to be on the show. Yeah, I booked Bow Wow. And I think you... Ice... Didn't I do Ice Cube?

No, I don't think you did Ice Cube, but there was a whole list of them. Like murderers row of rappers that you were able to secure to come to Britain. This is in the day, this is pre-pandemic, obviously, when we didn't do Zoom. We did it face-to-face. Nelly was the first. Bow Wow was maybe the second. Wayne might have been the third.

And then also, what's his name? Wayne's friend that we talked about. I ran into him on the street. What was his name? Oh, T.I. T.I., book T.I. Well, it's been a cavalcade of stars. And many of them were thanks to you and your pit bull persistence. Because that's who you are. Because you needed help on booking. You did. And you pulled that off. The biggest get was Wayne. Right. Who...

came on his tour bus when they were doing New York area. He drove up to Bristol and there he was and right away, he and I clicked because he and I share only one thing in the world and that is crazy sports passion and depth where we like to talk about why did that happen? Why is he the way he is or isn't? And

We got closer and closer. The first day he took me out to his tour bus show me where he's got his little recording studio on the bus. Amazing. And you'd say we come from opposite ends of the earth, but we got to be brother, brother close. So when you were doing your book Balls, you said, do you think I could ask Wayne to interview for the book, to give his side of...

the male-female relationship. Right, because there's a celebrity chapter. Yeah, there's a whole thing, and you've got... Billy Bob Thornton, Vince Gill... Yeah, 20 different celebrities. Michael Rapaport. And on the phone, you clicked with Wayne also. And he took a liking to you, which surprised me, but pleased me. And so now that he has moved to Southern California...

Where he is within striking distance. We've gone out to his new house. I don't know what three or four times. And I said here on the podcast that what I appreciate the most about Wayne and anybody else who's there, they just readily accept you in as one of the quote unquote guys. Right. And we might just sit and kick it around for like three or four hours. And you'll just sit with us and Wayne just goes on and he's himself. And yeah,

you've gotten in a different way for me, very close to him. I love Wayne. So he and I just, we formed a friendship that has nothing to do with you or sports and just formed a friendship of, we just, we just connect on life. And we just talk about, you know, I gave him for his birthday, I gave him a reading to my shaman, you know, because I have the shaman that I like and who's a psychic shaman. And, and we talk about love and relationships and,

and everything under the sun that has nothing to do with sports. And I'm not a rapper and I'm not, I'm not into rap music. I love, I love Wayne's music, but I'm not a rap person. I love Sinatra and I love sixties music and I love every other type of music, but I've never really been a big rap person. But,

The person I know of Wayne is one of the sweetest, most wonderful people. He is. Nicest, caring, loving. And I love him as my friend and we're friends and I just, there's something special about him. So I just would do anything in the world for him. And I just, I just love him as a person. You've actually gotten to know Dwayne Carter. Not Wayne, it's just Dwayne Carter, right? Yeah. And he's just Wayne to you. Yeah, he's just,

He's just my friend and I love him. And it's probably the best thing that I ever did was introduce him to your show because that's how we met. Yeah, I agree. Let's try another question. Okay. Let's go to Harry from Los Angeles. What do we not know about Skip that you want the world to know? That's a deep, that's a little lame question actually. Fire away. Okay.

So the entire 17 years that I know you or 16 years that I know you going on 17, the one thing that surprised me about you was that beyond the sports, you have a good sense of humor. You do. You have a different sense of humor than me, but you have a good dry sense of humor. And also the fact that.

You have a very big heart that, and you have a very, I grew up in a house that was very loving. My mother was the best person that walked this planet, the most loving, caring person. My father being Italian was a little bit more reserved, but he was a great provider and cared about his family more than anything. By the way, I loved your mother, Evelyn. Yeah. And you are Evelyn. Go ahead. And my sister has the same type of love that I have and she,

She's my best friend and you grew up in a house that was dysfunctional like you had two dysfunctional parents and when I met you you were You were kind of a mess because you couldn't even you don't even want to hold somebody's hand so you were very different than me as no one ever told me they loved me and I

Romance for me was more just about sex than about romance. Right. So I didn't know, you taught me romance. Right. And so I grew up in a house that when you love somebody, you tell somebody you love them, you take them around and you give them a hug and you kiss them. And so the thing about you was that you grew to become sort of normal of what the normal is to me of just showing affection and heart. And you treated my mother like...

Nobody could ever treat my mother and my sister. You were always there for my sister. And so you have a tremendous heart. And that's what I think is the best. And plus, you love movies. And we just could go to movies endlessly. Before COVID, when we lived in the city, we would go to matinees Saturday and Sunday. We could do three, four movies in a weekend and just have fun and just...

do nothing and just eat you know popcorn in the movie theater and have a good time and so you're fun to be with what people don't see you to be because they only see a side of you on sports or on your show and they think that you're just kind of a crotch all the time so you're not a crotch all the time okay so you say i'm more like the guy you know or the guy on television um

The guy that I see on TV, there's a part of that that comes home, but then you get stripped of that by me because I don't want to be with that person that's on TV. Sometimes you turn, sometimes you cross that line and you still remain as that person. And I don't really like that person because I don't want to debate and I don't want to have to feel that, you know, I'm always on the hot seat. And so, yeah.

When you become that real person, that's like the real person I know. The person on TV is very real because that's another side of you. But the other side is what I think people would be surprised to see that you are very different in real life. I appreciate that. So what you've taught me to a point is

I grew up in a household in which if you fought, you really fought, it was death. As in, okay, I'll never talk to you again if it got to that point. And you grew up in a household that is completely the opposite of that.

You want to fight and you will fight just the way I'm a natural born fighter. So we fight. Right. And then, I don't know, five minutes later, you come in and extend your hand like shake and you force me to shake. And I don't want to shake because I don't want to talk to you. That's abnormal the way you grew up. And I'm not a therapist or a psychiatrist. But when you when I lived in my parents' house or I lived on my own and my sister, my mother, we would have a big fight on the phone.

What do you mean? Oh, shut up. Don't worry about it. Oh, drop dead. Yeah, you too. Hang the phone up. And two minutes later, we'd call each other up. Hey, put on QVC. Did you see what they're showing? Ma, do you want me to buy you that? Like, it was just a total, you just move on. You can't hold the grudge. I fight with my sister all the time, but we're still best friends and we'll, and I'll call her and I'll say, Joyce,

You know, we fought, but we're not going to stay like this forever. So you know that you're going to. Right. We're going to hate. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. But then I know that it's not going to be forever. Like tomorrow, I'm going to talk to her. So what's the point in holding the grudge? You're going to have to just you just get over it. Sometimes it's harder than others, but you move on.

And yet finally, my salvation in life has been our Friday night date night. Right. And if I can give myself any credit at all in this relationship, I am obsessed with my games, with my job. Right. It's not, I don't even like to call it my job. It's just my life and my passion because I jump out of bed every morning at 2 a.m. because I live for this. Right. And I love it to a fault. But every once in a while...

I need an escape and yet I don't escape. I do play golf a couple of times here and there a week, but you know that I don't play poker with the guys. I don't have a guy's night out. I never do any of that kind of behavior. And when it's time to stop,

you get every second that I have. - Right, but you say that to me, but I say the same thing back to you. I too can go out, I have friends and I can do things, but I always, I took those time, like when you have 10 minutes,

You do. I spend it with you. You do. So that's the whole, not to hock my book again, but that's the reason I wrote the book. It was about compromise. It's about whether or not you live with somebody who's in sports or you work with somebody or you live with somebody who's in computers or whatever they do. If you don't compromise in a relationship two ways, you don't have a relationship. I give up all the time. I sit and I watch games with you. You do? I do. I mean, seriously.

On a Friday night now with the NBA, and I like basketball. I really do. But it's like from 6 o'clock until 11, and then the next day it's like, what time are these games? I do that. Somebody else maybe wouldn't do it. But if I don't do that, then I don't see you. And so it's a compromise. You have come around to love basketball.

Pro basketball. Not college basketball because you think it's amateurish. Mickey Mouse, yeah. Okay, but NBA? Yeah, I love it. You're pretty into the NBA and you will sit with me and watch it all day. I watch it on my own. I like it only because I could see the guys' faces and I get to know the guys. And I know who they are and I have crushes on certain ones because I need something to get me through watching four hours. So I have to like a guy. It doesn't bother me a bit. Yeah, I mean, I love...

I used to love J.J. Redick. You know, I love all those guys. Okay. And you still like baseball for so much the same reason. I like baseball, yeah. Especially I like the Yankees and the Mets only because I'm a New Yorker. But I like them because I can see them. Football, I can't connect with at all. I don't understand. They're bringing in the yellow line. They're bringing the 40-yard line. What should they do? Punt, kick. I don't even get it. And they all look the same. I still – you're very smart. Yeah. And –

It's like we're all made up of little intelligences in our head because you have high intelligence all around your brain. But when it comes to football, I can't even make you understand you get three downs to make a first down, go 10 yards. And if you don't, then you have to choose, do I go for it or do I punt? Yeah, but it's not as easy as that. Then there's other things that come into play. It's just to me, I can't take it. But by the way, from our book, it's going to be,

movie of the week at some point. Oh. Right? Yeah. I told you they're making it a movie of the week on GAC. Is that happening? It's going to be happening. It is going to be happening. Well, who's going to play you? I don't know. How about Sarah Jessica Parker? That would have been maybe 20 years ago. Maybe 20 years ago? I think 20 years ago, maybe. I don't know, but we're going to...

Fingers crossed, but that's what the word is right now. So maybe some Friday night we'll end up watching the Skip and Ernestine movies. Balls. Balls. As we lie on the couch, sit back on the couch. And you'll be switching between basketball and... No, so anyway, that's a side note. So hopefully everybody's got to cross their fingers that right now it's illegal, but... Okay. Congratulations on that. Thank you. That's all you. Thank you. And in the end, I would like to say that...

The greatest thing I can say about our relationship is not one second in 17 years have I ever been bored with you. And I do believe a lot of relationships get so stale that it's like...

couples we know want to go out and have couples nights so that the guys can talk and the women can talk. And we don't really like to go out with couples because when we have time, we just want to be together. We want to watch the movies or series that we watch. I might be flipping over to a game occasionally. Right. Well, what you usually do is you have your laptop and then you go, I just got to, I have to monitor this.

And then I say to you, then there's something happening on the movie screen. I'm like, you're missing what the guy just killed the main character. Oh, oh, okay. I'm watching it. Some games that aren't that important, I monitor with one eye. And then all of a sudden I say, hold on. Then I hate to do this to you, but I have to switch back. In the middle of the cliffhanger, you've got to switch back to see two seconds left of the game. There are two seconds left and somebody might make a last second shot. And then I'll be able to witness it.

Right. No, I get it. I get it. No, I'm used to this by now. Okay. Yeah. Well, I still think we have a pretty good relationship. We have a good relationship. We have fun. Yes, we do. We have a lot of fun. I think we have a lot of fun. Okay. That leads me... It's not always roses, but nothing is. No, it's not always roses. That leads to our final question. Right. From Megan. Yeah. From Boston. Describe Skip in three words. I've got the three words.

I'll bet you do. Creature of habit. Oh, God, you nailed me. You didn't know that. Because I told you today, I said, I'm going to, I'm not telling you what those three words. Creature of habit. In the kitchen, he has his vitamins and I have my vitamins. If I happen to move his vitamin C over three inches to the right. What happened to it? Ernestine, what happened to my vitamin C? It's right there where it was. No, it's not.

I walk out, I give you your vitamin C. You cannot move an iota. Skip will get in a tizzy. My Jordans. You have to, because we're in a pandemic still. And you're going to wipe them down. Right, I wipe them down. Okay. And you always...

replace them in the rack. Right. But it's an Easter egg hunt. They go all over the place. And I say, where are my X, Y, Z? Right. They're right there. Oh, they're right there. Oh, I didn't see them because you hid them. You can't move a thing. You can't say something different. You can't say...

Skip, do you maybe want to do this on Friday? Well, aren't we going to get the Eaterly pizza? Well, I thought maybe we'd switch it up. Well, okay. But I really want the Eaterly pizza. Creature of habit. But that's okay. It's Eaterly. You always say Eaterly. See, that's the... Okay. Well, you do because that's the way you nicknamed it Eaterly, right? Say squirrel. Squirrel.

You put the accent on the "rel" like "squirrel." What do you say? Squirrel. You say it. I say it like Oklahoma says it. That's wrong. Squirrel. Oh, and you don't have an accent. I forgot. You have no accent. I don't have an accent. He would say to me when he first met me, "You know, I like the way you speak." I'd say, "Well, how do I speak?" You have an accent. I'd say, "Did you ever hear yourself?" You come from Oklahoma.

Well, I used to. I left it behind. Oh, like the first time he said to me when I went back with you, remember what you said to me on the plane? Oh, you know, they don't have covered wagons anymore. No, that was the first time we were flying there because that's what you expected. I didn't expect that. What do you think, I live in like the 1800s or something? I live in, I'm a modern person. Well, you kind of like Oklahoma City. It's okay. I think it's nice. It looks like Long Island. There's malls and...

It's just basic. Okay, it's my turn to finish this off because I got three words for you, but I'm not going to rip you with creature of habit. I'm not a creature of habit. I'm going, this is the three words I would describe you best as. Unsinkable.

charismatic dynamo. - Oh, all right, I'll take those. - That's Ernestine. Unsinkable, charismatic dynamo. Because you got Evelyn's charisma because it just spills out of you. And wherever you go, the mall near where we live, you're the mayor of the mall. Every shopkeeper, shopper, they all know you, they wave to you, you're the mayor, right? - Right. - Everybody remembers you, they know your face because you just spill out with charisma.

And you're unsinkable because you will never waver. No, I don't. You can't be discouraged. You keep fighting. You keep fighting to make this relationship work. And it's just unsinkable. And you're a dynamo because I'm warning people out there, better not mess with her because...

When we do go, say, to the mall or go out, wherever we go, sometimes we walk to Rodeo Drive because it's not that far from where we live. And if people dare to come up to me on the street, you do not like it because that's Ernestine time. Well, I wouldn't. No, I don't mind that. But you get a little myth. But if somebody's going to come up and say something bad to you, I'm not going to let them say, oh, you keep picking on LeBron, what's wrong with you or whatever. Then you don't know if people are crazy. That is correct. But for the most part, you're always amazed because when people do come up to me,

They like me. Yeah. Right? And it surprises you. It shocks you when kids come up to me. Yeah, I love that. And they treat me like what? Very sweet.

They treat you like you're royalty. No, like I'm a kid. Oh, like you're a kid. I didn't know what the right word was. No, well, you know, like you always say. Oh, like you're a kid. No, I always say this to you, that they don't see you as an age, a color. They only see you as Skip. It's just Skip. And the kids could be 14 years old, and they could come from all different backgrounds, all different races, all different whatever. They just see you as Skip. They don't see you as an age.

anything about you, you just are this little skip thing. Right. And yet you get a little myth because that is your time. And if I do a talk show with them, we start talking about LeBron or the heat going to win it all. Then after a while, because if we have...

Hazel with us, she would attack anybody. Well, she's getting nutty. Yeah, but not me. I don't mind fans or people that come up to you. Right? Yeah. For the most part. But then you end up having to take the pictures. Oh, I always offer to take the pictures, too. During COVID, I don't want to touch people's cameras. That is true. But in the end, unsinkable, charismatic dynamo.

And I do love you. Thank you. I love you, too. Thank you for doing this. My pleasure. Thank you for having me on. We might try it again some future time. You're going to be such a big star. You'll be a big star. You'll have your own show. They'll say, Ernestine, not Skip anymore. Okay.

That is it for episode 19. I want to thank you for listening and or watching. I definitely want to thank our man Jonathan Berger for being so nice to Ernstine today and obviously his All Pro team for making this show go. Thank you to Tyler Korn for overseeing and producing. Colin. And Colin. Colin got you up here. Yeah, that's a good point. And please remember, Undisputed every weekday.

And that's from 9.30 to noon Eastern Time in the Skip Bayless Show every week.