Jay Mariotti: "Roger Ebert Can Kiss My Ass"

Remember back in the summer when venerable Chicago Sun-Times movie critic, Roger Ebert wrote that scathing farewell letter to Jay Mariotti? Jay does — and he's finally responded.

Real Clear Sports has an excellent interview with Fanhouse's new columnist, which is just oozing with typical Mariotti bitchiness. When asked about the Sun-Times squabbles and his subsequent departure, it's obvious he's yet to get over the whole incident:

I signed an extension in July under the belief that the paper would try to upgrade its Web site, which is the only way any newspaper can survive in the future. It was a fair request — I was devoting two more years to them — but they completely dropped the ball in Beijing. The subsequent "heat" was silly and embarrassing to them — I laughed at it. Can you imagine the New York Times or any other serious newspaper devoting the thrust of an entire edition to anyone who left the paper? Have some pride. Don't seem so hideously desperate that you're hung up on a sports columnist leaving and handing back about a million bucks. Don't trot out writers to disparage me when, frankly, they should have been directing that fire toward a newspaper war that was lost years ago.

And of course:

It's my life, not theirs. I wrote 5,000 columns for them in 17 years. I wrote on holidays, spent massive amounts of time away from home. Roger Ebert, whom I've met once, can kiss my ass. No one gave more blood to that place than I did, and if I decide it's going to die an imminent death, it's my call. And based on events of the last four months, I couldn't have been more accurate. The place is dead.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ebert is probably too busy recovering from thyroid and salivary gland cancer to engage in such an unpleasant activity.

Interview With Jay Mariotti [Real Clear Sports]