WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS PROFANITY
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Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, known by fans as “El Presidente,” went viral Wednesday on Twitter with a profane rant fighting back against coronavirus lockdowns.
Entitled “Emergency Press Conference - When Did Flattening The Curve Turn Into Finding The Cure,” Portnoy emotionally warned about the plight of Americans confused over whether to stay home or go back out in the world to make a living.
“I would rather die of corona... or take my chances... I don’t want to start over,” he yelled. “There are no great options but you can’t just decimate the entire economy.”
In the U.S., as in many countries, the lockdowns have helped trigger catastrophic levels of job losses. The U.S. unemployment rate soared to 14.7 percent in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression. Roughly 30 million Americans have been out of work.
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“Are we just done as humans? ... You have to take risks! We’re Americans!” Portney stressed.
He said Americans should be given the choice to roll the dice.
Worldwide, the virus has infected over 4.3 million people and killed some 297,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally. Experts have said the actual numbers likely were far higher.
Portnoy’s video received over 3.4 million views on Twitter alone, 47,000 retweets — and over 142,000 likes, as of Thursday morning.
Portnoy said his company essentially has been a comedy empire camouflaged as a sports website that never sought its anti-PC reputation.
The site’s content often has been vulgar — but fans seemed to embrace it all.
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Portnoy started Barstool as a “gambling and sports” newspaper he distributed around Boston back in 2003 and things exploded from there. He sold a majority stake of Barstool to The Chernin Group in early 2016, moving the company’s headquarters from Boston to New York City in the process.
The company’s podcasts have brought in 25 million livestreams per month and all together, over 1 billion minutes of Barstool content is consumed annually.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.