Antonio Cromartie...Says Hard Knock segment was staged...

His words:


"Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie found himself being roasted on blogs and in print for appearing to struggle mightily with the names of his eight children and their ages in what was portrayed as a casual, post-practice chat on some football padding. But Cromartie told Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post the scene that has earned him so much ridicule was a second take ordered by the director. Cromartie said the director - whom HBO officials refused to name - told him to "redo it" because he had not paused long enough between each of his kids' names. Asked if he had as much trouble listing the names as the scene appeared to show, Cromartie said: "Nah, I didn't have trouble. I mean, they asked me to pause. I had nailed it the one time before, but they had to redo it and they just told me to pause between each one of [the names]." Cromartie grew testy at the perception - now fuel-injected by "Hard Knocks" - that he can't keep track of all his kids. "So it's not a point of me not knowing my kids' [names]," he said. "I know every single one of my kids. I know the age of every single one of my kids."

Link:

Antonio, it doesn't matter if I (or anyone) doesn't believe. (I actually believe YOU though.) What does matter is that you understand when to say 'no'. You are NOT DEZ BRYANT (Even though I think he lied). You can't feign ignorance. IT IS PARAMOUNT that you understand the media market you are in and that a 'story' will always be 'dug out' by any means necessary. What may appear to you as a joke can fester into things like this. I RAN THAT STORY here. Others did too. We thought you were serious. I guess we should have known better but the show is about 'Realism' so we thought it was part of the act honestly. Shame us? Perhaps. Shame on you? Perhaps too. You can't put yourself in positions like that. Now I am not going to get on here and go on and on about the decisions to have your kids because that is something that is PERSONAL TO EVEN ME. I think that is off limits. I will say that you putting it out there like this, even at the behest of of an unnamed HBO producer was something that you to learn from. That is all.