After Kobe Bryant’s outburst on the court a few games ago, the L.A. Lakers star is still in the midst of trying to redeem his character and show that he is no homophobic guy.

In an interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters, he understands why his choice of words really was a big deal. Here’s what EURweb said he said. He shared that after he went online to read about suicides of kids who were teased and called names because of their sexuality, he learned from his mistakes.

The NBA star also explained that in high school, he used to beat up kids who would tease his gay friends.

“I used to beat up a lot of kids even in high school who used to tease my friends because they were gay, or because they were black, or because they were Jewish, or because they were yellow, or because they were whatever.”

There has been criticism to Kobe’s apology, to which he has to say, “For people who don’t think my apology is sincere, they don’t know me. This isn’t over for me. I really plan to do more. What I said was ignorant and I really didn’t realize what I was saying.”