'60 Minutes' Latest To Press Novak Djokovic About Being 'Anti-Vax' Despite Tennis Star Saying For Two Years That He's Not
Even though we are soon turning the calendar to 2024 and the pandemic is very much in the rearview mirror, some can't discuss Novak Djokovic without associating him as being anti-vax. The reality is that Djokovic was never anti-vax and has explained his stance for two years now, yet it appears CBS' '60 Minutes' didn't get that memo ahead of their interview with the tennis legend over the weekend.
Djokovic making the personal choice not to receive the COVID-19 vaccination ahead of the 2022 Australian Open very much made him a villain to some in the sports world. He was detained by Australia's ludicrous government before being deported from the country while simply wanting to play tennis.
"I was basically declared as a villain of the world," Djokovic told '60 Minutes.' "I had basically most of the world against me. I had that kind of experience on the tennis court with crowds that were not maybe cheering me on, but I never had this particular experience before in my life."
This later led to the question that Djokovic has had to answer multiple times since the outrage at the 2022 Australian Open. "You're not against vaccination, you just did not want it for yourself."
"Exactly, people try to declare me as an anti-vax. I am not anti-vax, I am pro-vax and pro-freedom to choose," Djokovic explained.
Novak Djokovic Constantly Making His Case About The Vaccine
This has been the misconception surrounding Djokovic and many others around the world for years now that anti-vax is not the same thing as anti-vax mandate.
Djokovic wasn’t against the COVID-19 vaccine because he didn’t think it was effective, he was against the fact that the shot was being forced on people around the world, and this is now at least the third time he's had to explain that.
“I was never anti-vax,” Djokovic told John McEnroe during an episode of ESPN+’s ‘McEnroe’s Place' in September of this year. “I was always pro-freedom-to-choose. And that’s something that we took really for granted. I didn’t feel like a lot of people had a choice, really, and I was encountering that on a daily basis with so many people in my country or around the world.”
You can even go back to January 2022 when Djokovic made his stance perfectly clear.
“I was never against vaccination,” Djokovic told the BBC. “But I’ve always supported the freedom to choose what you put in your body.”
The media and plenty in the general public glossed over Djokovic explaining that he wasn't against the vaccine in January 2022. Those same people ignored his explanation again in September, and odds are they'll do the same this time around as Djokovic being 'anti-force people to take a shot' instead of anti-vax doesn't fit the narrative.
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