Ayesha Curry’s first on-screen kiss ignited just enough social media controversy to get her new movie, “Second Chance Holiday,” plenty of online reaction.
While full movie metrics were not released yet, a specific clip of an on-screen kiss between Ayesha and her co-star, Matthew Daddario, went viral almost immediately upon release. A single post of the clip pulled in nearly 250,000 views within its first hour online, with subsequent shares and discussions across platforms like Reddit, Instagram, and Facebook, reaching millions.
Ayesha Curry Still Defending Online Kiss That’s Brought Attention To Roku Movie
It’s not a major motion picture, it’s a Roku movie released on Nov. 5, and the small budget film needs all of the PR it can get.
Ayesha, the wife of NBA legend Steph Curry, faced backlash for her acting responsibilities with most of the critics being men who didn’t think she needed to have the intimate scene and saw it as another moment of disrespect towards her husband Steph, who by all accounts, has no problem with the scene.
The fact that Ayesha had dreams of becoming an actress prior to locking in with Steph and giving him four kids, managing the household while he made hundreds of millions becoming an NBA legend, has driven the narrative of those defending her kissing another man on screen. It’s just acting and reportedly Ayesha is now chasing the dreams she put aside to tend to Steph’s empire.
Ayesha addressed the social media controversy last Thursday morning. Hours after her new Roku film began streaming, Ayesha answered the controversy in one short post.
“It’s not even real you guys are annoying,” she wrote on X.
Gilbert Arenas Explains Why Ayesha Curry Is Still Getting Backlash
On a recent podcast featuring former NBA players Gilbert Arenas and Nick Young, that was reposted on X by NBA Hoops, Arenas tried to explain why it’s such an issue for so many people that Ayesha did the kissing scene.
Gil clarifies his previous critical comments about Ayesha Curry. He says he wasn’t comparing her to regular women, he was comparing her to NBA star WAGs. Arenas believes that most famous wives of celebrity ballers know how to lay low and not become the story.
According to some fans, over the past few years, Ayesha has given the social media trolls ammunition to find some dents in the Curry family empire.
Ayesha has spent years addressing online criticism of her marriage. She keeps her responses brief. In 2021, when trolls fixated on her relationship with Steph, she posted a photo of the two with the caption, “Here’s the attention you were looking for.” In 2022, when a commenter accused them of having an open relationship, she told the critic not to disrespect her marriage.
Last September, Steph publicly defended Ayesha and checked rapper Killer Mike, who joined a content creator in criticizing her and their marriage. Killer Mike later apologized in October, but the online controversy returned with the release of this movie.
Some fans still can’t forget Ayesha acting as if she was removing her wedding ring on “the View” when some male strippers came out to spice up her appearance on the show.
Arenas says it’s those kinds of things that give people the opportunity to discredit you.
“You don’t hear anything about Jayson Tatum’s wife and she’s famous. You don’t hear anything about Donovan Mitchell’s wife because she’s famous. So she’s (Ayesha) giving people ammunition to go at Steph Curry, and brands that are affiliated with him don’t really like that,” Arenas explained.
“She’s not doing anything wrong, but he’s [Steph] 100 percent clean. There’s not a ticket. There’s no smoking weed. He’s the Pope in a sense. [Ayesha] you make one mistake, you are the worst out of the two. It’s not like she’s compared to the field of women, but the top tier views of those kinds of players, they have their own rulebook. Because that group of people have brands and the men are media trained and protected by the team. So if the wife goes and does something you can’t protect that,” Arenas added.
NBA Doesn’t Want Superstars To Have Famous Girlfriends and Wives
Gil doesn’t think her acting is a bad thing, but he says the NBA doesn’t even really want their talent to have a girlfriend that’s famous because it brings another layer of distractions.
“Gil this is the best take that I’ve seen in a min,” one fan said in the comments.
“They probably have an open relationship for her to be talking the way she does,” another netizen mentioned.
“And this is what annoys me about her supporters. Y’all take so much credit away from Steph it’s insane. Ayesha would be a struggling actress like most actresses. Even if she made it big, she would be complaining about pay just like Taraji,” someone else quipped.
Ayesha Curry fans are frustrated that they still have to defend her against guys like Arenas who suggest her kissing scene had a negative affect on the family name.
“I will never understand the Ayesha Curry hate! I pay she is good at blocking out the noise,” one fan commented in support of Steph’s wife.
“Leave that woman alone she been with Steph since high school. Taking relationship advice from Gil is crazy especially after the way he did the mother of kids!” one Ayesha defender shot back at Arenas.
“And Gabrielle Union was doing sex scenes in ‘Being Mary Jane’ (the top show on BET at the time) that Dwyane Wade defended her for doing because she is still a professional actress,” another fan quipped.
To which another responded: “She was already a very famous actress for a minute before she got with dwade. That’s different.”
Ayesha Curry is embarking on a new journey in her life, and people who don’t approve will just have to deal with it. This isn’t her first rodeo with film. She appeared in Netflix’s “Irish Wish” opposite Lindsay Lohan in 2024 and in Hulu’s holiday rom-com Joy to the World in 2025. When starring for Second Chance Holiday, she expressed her love for the genre, noting “there’s something truly magical about holiday rom-coms.”
Say what you want about Ayesha and her new movie. Her kissing scene has helped attention for the movie explode and the controversy surrounding it has definitely helped the film get plenty of free promotion.
