Shannon Sharpe came clean about a sexual encounter with an unidentified woman that he accidentally streamed to his 3 million-plus followers on Instagram live this week, saying he is “embarrassed” but was just “being a healthy, active male.”
The NFL great, former Fox Sports host and current ESPN presenter said Wednesday on his “Nightcap” podcast that he had never used Instagram Live before and was unaware of what happened until an assistant who helps run the account stopped the stream after a minute and a half. The camera did not show what was going on, but the audio is clearly an encounter between Sharpe and an unidentified woman.
“Um, obviously, I’m embarrassed,” Sharpe said, speaking with guest Chad Ochocinco. “As someone that is extremely, extremely private, um, and to have one of your most intimate details — the audio — heard for the entire world to hear, I’m embarrassed for a number of reasons.”
Sharpe said he had already called his children, colleagues and closest friends to apologize – but had no apology for getting busy.
“I’m very disappointed in myself — not for the act,” Sharpe said. “I think there are millions and billions of people of consenting age that engage in activities. But — but to have your most intimate detail on the audio to be heard — I’m disappointed in myself. I let a lot of people down.”
Though Sharpe initially suggested his IG had been hacked, he copped to the accident as soon as he saw for himself what he had broadcast.
“This was not staged,” he said. “I came in, I threw my phone on the bed, engaged in an activity,” he said. “I did not know IG Live — I’ve never been on IG Live. I’ve never turned IG Live on, so I don’t know how it works. And so, all of a sudden, my other phone is going off, and people are calling me FaceTime that I’ve never talked to a day in my life on FaceTime. And it didn’t—I’m like, why are y’all calling me FaceTime?”
A marketing assistant finally got through to him.
“You know, I’m like, ‘What am I on IG Live for? I ain’t no IG Live button.’ He says, ‘Uh, they can hear.’ … Man, my heart sank. It dropped.”
Sharpe said he quickly called ESPN, with whom he signed a multiyear contract in June.
“After a thought, I was like, I just got — I just tell them the truth,” Sharpe said. “I said, ‘I just got to tell them the truth. My phone wasn’t hacked, uh, it wasn’t an —wasn’t a prank. It was me being a healthy, active male.”
