American mixed martial artist Bryce Mitchell said he will be home-schooling his infant son because he doesn’t “want him to be gay.”
“We’re going to have to home-school all our kids or they’re all going to end up turning gay,” Mitchell, 29, said in an Instagram video Wednesday while holding his son, Tucker, who he said was born on March 29. “That’s the reason I’m going to home-school Tucker, because I don’t want him to be a communist. I don’t want him to worship Satan. I don’t want him to be gay.”
Mitchell, a 16-3 UFC featherweight fighter whose nickname is “Thug Nasty,” made the homophobic remarks right after he encouraged his nearly 500,000 Instagram followers not to vaccinate their children and just before he complained that public schools don’t have students reading the Bible.
“They took it out of the schools and replaced it with Edgar Allen Poe, who shacked up with his cousin,” said Mitchell, an Arkansas native who works as a cattle farmer when he’s not in an MMA cage. “My son ain’t going to be reading no Edgar Allan Poe, OK? He’s going to be reading the Bible.”
It wasn’t clear whether Mitchell — who has shared publicly that he believes the Earth is flat — plans to home-school Tucker himself.
Mitchell’s Instagram video drew mixed responses. At least two fellow UFC fighters appeared to support it: Sean Strickland, a former UFC middleweight champion who himself has made anti-LGBTQ remarks publicly, commented with prayer and American flag emojis, and welterweight star Jorge Masvidal wrote, “God Bless.”
Other responses were more critical: Several people took aim at the homophobic nature of the remarks, and someone questioned why Mitchell was “throwing shade” at Poe. At least one commenter took issue with Mitchell’s wearing only what appeared to be boxer shorts, writing, “maybe put your pants on before posting videos.”
Neither the UFC nor Mitchell’s team, Barata MMA, immediately responded to requests for comment about Mitchell’s Instagram post.
Mitchell made his anti-gay remarks just two weeks after Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker made national headlines for a commencement speech at a Catholic college encouraging women to be homemakers and railing against abortion, Covid-19 lockdown measures and LGBTQ Pride Month.
For more from NBC Out, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
