New Chiefs WR Mecole Hardman on homophobic tweets: ‘That’s not who I am today’

Georgia wide receiver Mecole Hardman, selected by the Chiefs with the No. 56 pick Friday night, is the latest athlete to have troubling tweets surface from his past.

In a three-year span from 2012-16, Hardman posted a series of tweets with homophobic language.

“I hope you know being gay .. ! You gone go to hell ? JustSaying .. ! ,” Hardman tweeted on March 24, 2013.

Hardman, now 21, was 13 years old when he began sending the tweets.

“That’s a long time ago,” Hardman said. “That’s probably immature of me at the time to tweet things like that. That’s my fault for doing that. I came a long way from that. That’s not who I am today.

“It’s a really immature decision on my part to even tweet anything like that. I’ve just got to live with that decision that I made and just move forward from it.”

Reid also spoke about Hardman’s social media posts Friday night.

“He was a kid,” Reid said. “He said some things he shouldn’t have said. Kids do that. I’ve had a lot of kids, and I’ve got a lot of grandkids. They can surprise me with some things. That’s part of growing up.”

This story was originally published April 26, 2019 at 9:31 PM.