Per Forbes, Mulkey, 61, recently made headlines in March after threatening legal action against The Washington Post. She read a prepared statement ahead of a tournament game, accusing a journalist from the newspaper of preparing a negative article on her after – she claimed – her former assistant coaches were tricked into giving interviews.

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She was recently mocked on SNL

“I work my girls hard every day. I make them run 10 miles breathing in Louisiana swamp gas. Then we practice full contact,” Gardner’s Mulkey quips.

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In a career filled with controversy, Mulkey’s treatment of Brittney Griner is one of the more infamous stand-outs. Griner was detained in Russia for 10 months in 2022 after allegedly carrying illegal cannabis oil in her luggage. Mulkey refused to comment on Griner’s imprisonment, resulting in public outrage.

Griner – a Black, openly gay athlete – also said that while she was playing college basketball for the Baylor Lady Bears in Texas, where Mulkey was her coach, she was told to hide her sexuality. “I wasn’t fully happy because I couldn’t be all the way out,” she told ESPN in 2013.

But in a December 2021 interview with the same outlet, Griner said her 2013 comments weren’t aimed at Mulkey, but rather at Baylor. “It’s not a personal attack on [Mulkey]; she didn’t write the rules at Baylor,” Griner was quoted as saying.

In the same article, Alexis Morris, who played at LSU at the time, claimed that Mulkey was not homophobic, adding that the coach advised players to guard their personal lives from the public, “whether you are gay, straight, bi, pansexual, whatever”.

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However, Kelli Griffin – an openly gay athlete who played under Mulkey at Baylor between 2007 and 2010 – told Marca.com in March that the coach made comments about her “being dressed like a boy”, adding that the thought that ran through her mind at the time was: “OK, this lady might not like gay people.”

Her mixed reputation

While she may have a reputation for leading teams to victory, Mulkey’s tactics for getting there have repeatedly been under scrutiny. In February 2017, she downplayed a sexual assault scandal at Baylor University – then apologised following criticism over the lack of support she showed for victims.

Known for her dramatic sideline coaching, fierce battles with rival coaches and team members, and public statements against Covid-19 regulations during the pandemic, Mulkey is unapologetic about her outspokenness.

“It may not come across as politically correct, but my heart is in the right place. It’s sometimes taken the wrong way. And, you know, that’s fair. I don’t want to hurt anybody. We all have our badness. But my good, I hope, will always far outweigh my bad,” ESPN quoted her in December 2021 as saying.

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The top-paid coach in US women’s college basketball

In September 2023, after the LSU Tigers women’s basketball team won the national championship, Mulkey was given a 10-year, US$36 million contract extension. The deal made her the highest-paid coach in US women’s college basketball.

Per USA Today, Mulkey is earning US$400,000 as her base salary, plus US$2.75 million in supplemental income, for a total of US$3.15 million in her first season. So far, the coach has led her teams to four national championship wins – three at Baylor and one at LSU. Reports put her net worth at around US$10 million to US$12 million.