{"id":959833,"date":"2026-07-26T06:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T06:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/959833\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T06:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T06:03:15","slug":"liberty-star-jonquel-jones-apologizes-for-viral-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/959833\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty star Jonquel Jones apologizes for viral comment"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 An emotional Jonquel Jones shared a heartfelt apology Saturday night for a viral comment she made on the \u201cStudBudz\u201d livestream that she said was \u201ctaken the wrong way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones could be heard on Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman\u2019s stream Thursday night saying that she felt the Connecticut Sun deserved to win the 2019 WNBA Finals more than the Washington Mystics much like the Minnesota Lynx deserved to win more than the Liberty in 2024.<\/p>\n

Her comment went almost instantly viral, with some Liberty fans taking issue with it.<\/p>\n

Jones called the ordeal \u201ca gut punch for me\u201d and said she \u201ccouldn\u2019t really enjoy the weekend\u201d because it weighed heavily on her.<\/p>\n

She explained that she was enjoying a night out and had her guard down. She was talking with a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I said it didn\u2019t really come out in the way that I meant it,\u201d Jones said moments after winning this year\u2019s All-Star Game MVP<\/a>. \u201cWhat I was just saying is that you can have a team that has a lot of chemistry, that is great on paper, that has had a great season and it\u2019s still not enough to get it done and that\u2019s what I was trying to explain to her with that whole clip.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we put our hearts out there on the court in 2024, and I wouldn\u2019t want it to finish any other way. I know what it means to our city. I know what it meant to me and every single player that stepped on the court, put their heart into that and so obviously I feel like what I said was taken the wrong way and I\u2019ll take accountability for that as well and understand that I do have a responsibility when I speak to make sure that I\u2019m representing not just myself but our organization in the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point during her answer, Jones, the 2024 Finals MVP, was overcome with emotion and needed to take a moment\u2019s pause to gather herself.<\/p>\n

\"JonquelJonquel Jones is all smiles after winning the MVP award at the All-Star Game on July 25, 2026 in Chicago. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York means a lot to me,\u201d she continued through tears. \u201cThe organization means a lot to me. Our locker room, our chemistry, what we built, I never wanted to misrepresent that and I just never wanted people to ever feel like I was doing anything other than trying to put my best foot forward for our team, so I apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Liberty beat the Lynx in five games to capture the franchise\u2019s first championship. The series ended in controversy when fiery Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said the series \u201cwas stolen from us\u201d because of poor officiating.<\/p>\n

But Jones set the record straight Saturday that she didn\u2019t mean any harm by the comment she made to the StudBudz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 An emotional Jonquel Jones shared a heartfelt apology Saturday night for a viral comment she made…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":959834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[49],"tags":[2338,1520,62,67,132,68,232],"class_list":["post-959833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-jonquel-jones","tag-new-york-liberty","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wnba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/959834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}