Photo: Sterling Spencer // YouTube
Why was everyone so mad at Laird? It’s a question that Sterling Spencer cheekily posed to the big wave icon’s spouse Gabby Reece when she appeared on his podcast. Unsurprisingly, she had some thoughts on the subject.
“There was an era where I felt like he got so much heat,” opened Sterling, referring to the fact that making fun of Laird Hamilton has become a time-honored tradition in some surfing circles. To be fair, there’s a lot of things that prompt that, from his sometimes brusque demeanor in the past, to the fervor with which he embraces non-traditional surfing technology, to the brazen commercialism he applies to hawking his line of nutritional supplements and coffee creamers.
According to Gabby, though, that all started with his cameo in the seminal surf movie North Shore. “I think it got set by Lance Burkhart,” she replied. “I think that character, coupled with Laird being very precocious when he was young on the North Shore, and all that kind of battling that went on, whether it was with Sunny or Johnny Boy or all that. Then you play this character. Also, he was not on the tour, so it’s not like they’re intermingling that much. He’s off kind of doing his own thing for a really long time.”
When Spencer asked if jealousy from other pros was part of the equation, Reece was quick to brush it off. “No, I don’t think it’s that,” she replied. “I think when we don’t understand people, or it feels like they’re brash – you see this in skateboarding and BMX biking and surfing, there’s a core and so a lot of times if you don’t go with the core, they don’t like that so much.”
The final part of the equation, according to Reece, was Hamilton’s own refusal to push back against the hate. “Also, I think Laird doesn’t think he has a ton of time, even when he was a lot younger,” she concluded. “He has a lot of things he wants to do, so I don’t think he regarded [responding to criticism] more than what he was trying to do.”
