Craig Carton.

Used to work in Philly back in the day. Then he went to WFAN, got sent to jail for securities and wire fraud, and returned to WFAN. That’s the short version of a long story.

He’s back in the news cycle this week because he asked Jets’ draft pick Zach Wilson about his mom, who people think is hot:

That was kind of awkward. You could tell the dude didn’t wanna talk about it. Carton took 30 seconds to ask the question, same as Howard Eskin fumbling for the right words to query Gabe Kapler about coconut oil masturbation.

It was a goofy setup, but he didn’t ask it any kind of nefarious way, I don’t think. He played it off as some kind of “everybody is talking about this topic” kind of thing. Cringeworthy? Absolutely, but maybe only a 5/10 on the arbitrary lecherous creeper scale.

Carton took some criticism for that, and responded this way:

It’s actually an okay explanation, but Carton fumbling the original question and sounding like a weirdo doesn’t help his case. And just because the New York Post wrote about Zach Wilson’s hot mom doesn’t mean you gotta ask him about it. What’s the kid gonna say anyway? Carton has to know it’s a dead end question that isn’t gonna result in any kind of meaningful response. And the media outlets who wrote the stories should be criticized the same way Carton was. They’re all complicit in being doofuses.

This kind of reminds me of that time Dua Lipa was asked about her hot dad.

This is what she said:

The British singer spoke to The Sunday Times about her newly-released album Future Nostalgia and was asked whether she was aware of her dad Dukagjin Lipa’s online attention. 

“Yes, I am aware of this. He finds it funny. We don’t really talk about it much!” Dua said.

Yeah, so you get a three-sentence answer. Four sentences if you’re lucky. Maybe the rule of thumb should be not to ask kids about their hot parents, because it’s awkward and you aren’t gonna get anything worthy as a response.