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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Entertainment
Joseph Salvador

Peyton Manning Doubled Down on 2017 Kevin Durant Joke at ESPYs

Even when he’s not hosting the Emmys, Peyton Manning just couldn’t help but poke fun at Kevin Durant and pay homage to a legendary joke from five years ago. 

During a bit on Thursday night’s ESPYs, host Stephen Curry was on FaceTime with the  2017 ESPYs host. While hosting the awards show in ’17, Manning congratulated the U.S. women’s gymnastics team for its success at the ’16 summer Olympics in Rio. Manning followed up by saying, “Our gymnastics team was so dominant that Kevin Durant told me he wants to play for them next year.”

The joke went viral because when the camera panned to Durant in the crowd, he was stone-faced and didn’t appear amused. It appears Manning is still awfully proud of that moment and joke. 

“When I hosted the ESPYs five years ago, I made a little quip about Kevin Durant wanting to play for a great team that made a lot of headlines,” Manning said. “Feel free to use that one because it hasn’t aged a day.”

Curry can be seen responding “it’s true but no.” At the time, poking fun at Durant for joining the Warriors in 2016, a squad that just had the best regular season of all time, was common. On Thursday, Durant addressed the joke and his reaction via Twitter. 

It started when a Twitter user posted the 2017 video, tagged Durant and asked him why he was so “salty” to which he replied, “If it was funny I would’ve laughed…it’s a simple concept.” Another Twitter user suggested that Durant was hurt by the joke and was pretending he didn’t care. 

“I really don’t believe it’s that deep, it wasn’t funny so I didn’t laugh, im glad u enjoyed the laugh tho, it’s therapeutic for the soul,” Durant said in a tweet. 

One thing is true from all of this, the moment truly hasn’t aged a day.  

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