ESPN First Take personality Stephen A. Smith has been a vocal critic of the Dallas Cowboys over the years, taking to Twitter whenever the team struggles to cackle at fans.

On Wednesday, however, Smith struck a different tone when discussing quarterback Dak Prescott, noting that a friend reached out and “begged” him to show compassion given Prescott’s battles with anxiety and depression over the last three years following the death of his brother. Smith admitted he hadn’t thought about Prescott’s struggles from that perspective.

“I’m a human being first,” Smith said. “…And believe it or not, even though it doesn’t seem that way on television or what have you, I do have compassion all the time. And I do think there are times when it’s important to showcase that and put it on display, because God knows, the world that we’re living in today, it’s needed.”

In 2020, Prescott opened up about his experience living with mental health struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prescott’s family had already gone through enormous personal tragedy. His mother died of colon cancer in 2013, and in 2020, his brother, Jace, took his own life.

“I don’t want to sit here and dwell on the things that were a struggle for me when I know I’m very fortunate and blessed and other people have it much more worse,” Prescott said at the time. “But just to be transparent about it, that even in my situation, emotions and those type of things can overcome you if you don’t do something about it.”

In his video, Smith said he knows all too well how painful it is to lose a family member to cancer. His mother, Janet, died in 2017.

“When I went back and read what [Dak Prescott] said and the difficulties his brother had, ladies and gentlemen, I can relate,” Smith said. “I never thought about killing myself, but for two years, every single day at some moment in time I wished I was dead. That is how bad my life was without my mother.”

Smith said he went to therapy to work through the feelings of loneliness he experienced without his mother, and that the hardest moment was at his mother’s funeral.

“That is when it was over, when I felt it was over,” Smith said. “And I wanted to die, because she meant that much to me. I knew for the rest of my life I would never, ever, ever have anyone like that again.”

That experience, and seeing Prescott’s perspective, made Smith reconsider how he talks about the Cowboys quarterback, joking that he might even wish for the Cowboys to win if it brought Prescott relief.

“I never want a brother to feel like he’s in that kind of abyss,” Smith said, “that life is that low. I might make fun of a Cowboys loss, but that is me as a fan having fun against Cowboys fans. I wish him no ill.”

Tuesday was World Mental Health Day.

For more information on messaging about suicide, suicide prevention and mental illness, visit the Framework for Successful Messaging or Reframing Language. If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing emotional distress, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.