Comic Amy Schumer doesn’t think anything is funny about the way she feels the NFL has treated Colin Kaepernick.
So she wants to hit the league where it hurts — in its wallet.
Schumer announced in an Instagram post over the weekend that she won’t be appearing in any Super Bowl ads come February.
“Hitting the nfl with the advertisers is the only way to really hurt them,” she said in the post, which generated more than 11,000 comments. “I know opposing the nfl is like opposing the nra. Very tough, but don’t you want to be proud of how you’re living?”
Schumer, the star of comedies like “I Feel Pretty” and “Trainwreck,” also wonders why more white players weren’t joining Kaepernick and other black NFL players in kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial inequality.
“Once you witness the truly deep inequality and endless racism people of color face in our country, not to mention the police brutality and murders,” she wrote, “why not kneel next to your brothers? Otherwise how are you not complicit?”
This isn’t the first time the New York-born actress, and cousin of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has expressed her political views. Earlier this month, she was among more than 300 people arrested at a Senate building in Washington while protesting during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh.
Schumer appeared in a Bud Light Super Bowl commercial with Seth Rogen in 2016.
Kaepernick, once one of the NFL’s brightest stars, hasn’t played in the league in two years. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback sparked controversy when he sat, then knelt, during the National Anthem before several 2016 NFL preseason and regular-season games.
He said he did so to protest police shootings of African-American men and other social injustices faced by black people in the United States.
“To me, this is something that has to change,” Kaepernick said in an August 2016 interview. “And when there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent and this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.”
Kaepernick also said he could not “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He now is the face of Nike in a new ad campaign.
Schumer isn’t the only big star saying no to the NFL over Kaepernick. Reports have surfaced that pop star Rihanna passed on performing during the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show, because the singer “stands with the players and Colin Kaepernick.
Super Bowl LIII will be held on February 3 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.