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Sports media personalities Stephen A Smith and Skip Bayless appear to have buried the hatchet as they were spotted breaking bread over the Thanksgiving weekend.
The high-profile pair are no strangers to one another, having spent four years as sparring partners on ESPN's First Take, which Smith still stars on.
However, their relationship had become fraught in recent years following Bayless's exit from First Take to join rival program Undisputed on FS1 on a lucrative contract in 2016.
Smith later sparked the tension when he made barbed comments about Bayless and his First Take stint, which appeared to see their relationship almost completely deteriorate.
However, the pair appear to have fully put the feud behind them as they reunited over the holiday weekend.
A photo shared to social media by a fan on Saturday night showed Smith and Bayless sat in a diner booth along with the latter's wife Ernestine.
Stephen A Smith (right), Skip Bayless (second left) and his wife were spotted out for dinner
The pair spent four years as sparring partners on First Take but have had a tense relationship
The trio posed in the background of the fan's selfies with Smith and Ernestine holding up peace signs to the camera, while Bayless leaned in and smiled.
They appeared to be enjoying a quiet dinner out at Nate 'n Al's, a famous and historic deli in Beverley Hills.
Smith, who remains at ESPN, and Bayless, who left Fox Sports in August 2024, worked on First Take together from 2012-16, revolutionizing the sports debate format.
However, Smith was perceived to have taken a sly dig at Bayless in 2022 when he appeared to suggest he was primarily responsible for First Take's sky-high ratings.
'Skip Bayless comes to me in the parking lot of ESPN's campus in Bristol, Connecticut, and he says, 'I know you've got your plans. You love the NBA. You love being out on the road. You love being in the locker room. But I need you,' Smith recalled on the 'The Old Man and the Three' podcast in 2022.
'I've done all that I could to take this as far as it can go. I need you, please. Just give me three years. I think we'll knock it out of the park.''
Bayless later shot back on his own show.
'Stephen A. was suggesting that he saved and then made First Take. How can you save and make a show that was already as big a billion to one success story as ESPN had ever seen? The ratings and the revenues were impossibly great when Stephen A. joined me in 2012,' Bayless said.
Meanwhile, last December, Smith claimed he no longer had any form of relationship with Bayless, explaining why he 'can't vibe' with his former colleague.
Smith appeared to suggest he was responsible for First Take's sky-high ratings in 2022
The pair reunited earlier this year when Smith appeared as a guest on Bayless's show
'When I say we don't have a relationship, it's not anything negative from my end,' Smith said on the Talk With Flee podcast.
'It's me letting you know, "Yo, bro, I picked up the phone on several occasions." He never called me back. To me, if you that kind of person, that doesn't make you bad, it just means that we can't vibe. Because I'm gonna answer a call.'
He added: 'I got a lot of people over the last year or two that have really, really pissed me off. I'm picking up the phone if they call. There's only one person that I won't pick up the phone for, everybody knows who that is. Skip had his right not to pick up the phone when the whole Shannon thing was going down and that's fine. That's his prerogative. But live with that.'
However, they reunited on air earlier this year for the first time in nearly a decade when Smith became the first guest of 'The Skip Bayless Show.'
Bayless admitted feeling some 'trepidation' over hosting Smith, but their instant rapport came flooding back and now, it appears to have stayed.
