Shannon Sharpe’s eventful Wednesday earned him some recognition.
A day after he broadcast an ongoing sexual encounter on Instagram Live, claimed he had been hacked and later confessed to the accidental act on his podcast “Nightcap,” fellow ESPN contributor Pat McAfee interrupted his activity to praise the man known as “Unc.”
“Josh Allen apparently took it on his shoulders… I don’t mean took it on his shoulders like Shannon Sharpe did on IG Live,” McAfee said on the “Pat McAfee Show” on Thursday, pivoting midway through Bills’ opinion. “Shout out to Unc by the way. Unc, hey, you handled it perfectly on ‘Nightcap,’ we’re all very grateful you did that instead of saying a fake ‘I got hacked!’ Impossible. We all knew it was so impossible when it happened, whenever the ‘hack’ happened.”
The minute-and-a-half-long clip, which made the rounds on social media, showed the ceiling of a room before the phone was turned over, but also contained some offensive audio.
“Didn’t see anything, didn’t see anything, heard a lot… it was a podcast,” McAfee told his on-air colleagues. “Maybe it was voice actors, we don’t know, he didn’t say that was the case, but uncle, that’s how you deal with it.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever thought of that before. A sex tape with only audio – that seems pretty good,” he added.
The whole debacle was enough for Sharpe to convene an emergency episode of his podcast “Nightcap” with Chad Ohocino, a former NFL colleague whom Sharpe had recently reprimanded for what he considered unprofessional conduct.
“Of course I’m embarrassed. When someone whose private life is extremely private has one of their most intimate details – the audio recording – available to the entire world, it’s embarrassing for a number of reasons,” Sharpe told Ochocino, who seemed to enjoy a little glee.
“A lot of people rely on Shannon to always conduct herself professionally, and I try to always conduct myself professionally, even when I’m behind closed doors. … I’m very disappointed in myself, not in the act. I think there are millions and billions of people of consenting age who participate in activities, but when you hear the audio, I’m disappointed in myself. I’ve disappointed a lot of people.”
However, McAfee was not among them.
“For Unc’s sake, I hope he’s not embarrassed by the situation – it doesn’t sound like he is – he should feel pretty good about the whole thing,” McAfee said.
Sharpe was absent from Thursday’s episode of ESPN’s “First Take” but is not expected to be punished for his social media blunder, according to TMZ.
