Pat McAfee Addresses Ole Miss Student Threatening to Sue Him for Spreading False Rumor — Promises ‘Silver Lining’

 
Pat McAfee addresses controversy involving Ole Miss student

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Pat McAfee briefly addressed a potential lawsuit coming his way from a college student he spread a false rumor about on his show.

Last week, The Athletic reported that 19-year-old Mary Kate Cornett — a freshman at Ole Miss — was considering legal action against McAfee and other sports media personalities for amplifying the rumor that she slept with her boyfriend’s father. The rumor picked up steam on the anonymous messaging app YikYak before spreading to other social media. It was then mentioned by multiple Barstool Sports personalities, and McAfee even discussed it on an episode of The Pat McAfee Show.

Since then, Cornett has faced death threats and been the target of online and in-person harassment. She had to switch her courses to online-only as a result, and was even relocated on campus.

During his live event Big Night Aht on Wednesday night, McAfee touched on his previous legal battle against former NFL star Brett Favre while referencing the ongoing situation with Cornett.

“I’m cool with Brett,” McAfee said on stage, “just like the current situation happening, where I have a lot of people saying that I should be sued. I wanna say this: I never, ever wanna be a part of anything negative in anybody’s life — ever. That is not what I wanna do. And for all of these events, you fucking know it that lawyers are Pittsburgh lawyers. They’re in here tonight, I do believe. They have a suite here that I have certainly contributed to. But they have the same mindset as me — empathy but understanding reality. And for that whole thing that’s happening, I didn’t wanna add any more negativity as it was taking place like I did. We will try to figure that out and make some sort of silver lining in a very terrible situation; so you can have that promise from me. It won’t be as impossible to be a fan of mine going forward.”

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