Harlem Globetrotter basketball star Maxwell Pearce is opening up about a troubling incident from earlier this year that involved a news anchor throwing a banana at him.

The Tuckahoe native and Purchase College graduate was on Fox 6 News in Birmingham back in January to promote his team when an anchor and a weatherman thought it would be funny to throw a few pieces of fruit. The anchor threw a banana and the weatherman threw an orange.

"When the banana was thrown and I caught it, I was in such shock and I was so stunned that I didn't know how to even begin how to unpack what just happened," he says.

Pearce said he chose not to say anything due to uneasiness, but the incident never left his mind.

"I tried to suppress this incident as much as I could and then once I saw the happenings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, all of these emotions from this experience were just reignited and it was enough to get m to the point where I had to share the lessons of this experience," he says.

Pearce recently went public with his story, and soon after, the station and anchors involved apologized for their actions.

He says with that behind him, he wants to use the experience to assist others in increasing cultural awareness.

Clare Huddleston, the anchor who threw the banana, made a public apology that Pearce did not accept. Mickey Ferguson, the weather forecaster who threw an orange, also apologized. Pearce accepted his apology.