"Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then"
About this Quote
The intent is half confession, half warning. “Was I that stupid?” lands as a self-roast, but it also smuggles in a critique of how fame metabolizes time. You don’t need a script to play the fool when the environment rewards it. For an athlete of Dionne’s era, the contrast matters: his peak came before social media, before celebrity became a full-time job, before “content” was a second scoreboard. Yet he’s admitting that the impulse was already there in him - the same susceptibility to status, attention, and easy pleasure.
The kicker is “But that was me then.” It’s not an excuse; it’s an insistence on change. He draws a clean line between the person who lived for the moment and the person who can now watch that moment from a distance, with embarrassment but also mercy. The subtext is adult humility: growth isn’t glamorous, just honest enough to admit you were once exactly the type you now side-eye on TV.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning from Mistakes |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Dionne, Marcel. (2026, February 16). Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-you-watch-reality-tv-you-watch-them-in-all-114492/
Chicago Style
Dionne, Marcel. "Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then." FixQuotes. February 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-you-watch-reality-tv-you-watch-them-in-all-114492/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then." FixQuotes, 16 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/now-you-watch-reality-tv-you-watch-them-in-all-114492/. Accessed 26 Feb. 2026.



