Shannon Sharpe shared an intimate Instagram Live video on Wednesday afternoon to his 3.2 million followers and the tawdry nature caused it to get in front of a lot more than 6.4 million eyes. He initially claimed that he was hacked and therefore not responsible for broadcasting risqué content, which was tough to believe. It was also not truthful.
“Beware my @shannonsharpe84 Instagram was hacked this morning, my team and I are working vigorously to figure this out," Sharpe's now-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter, read in the wake of the incident.
The Pro Football Hall of Famer and First Take analyst hours later explained what actually happened on an emergency episode of Nightcap.
“I threw my phone on the bed, engaged in an activity,” Sharpe said. “I did not know IG live. I’ve never turned IG live on so I don’t know how it works and all of sudden my other phone started going off.”
Sharpe deleted his first comment on the situation and reached out to his employers to come clean.
“My heart sank. I called my agent, I called the agency, I called ESPN and I [thought] just tell them the truth. My phone wasn’t hacked, it wasn’t a prank, it was me being a healthy, active male.”
Sharpe left Undisputed this past summer and has caught on at First Take, where he is arguably Stephen A. Smith's most capable foil. His podcasting career has also been on the upswing. All of these factors combine to make him one of sports media's biggest current stars.
"Obviously I am embarrassed," Sharpe said. "Someone that is extremely, extremely private 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."
It will be interesting to see if there is any further fallout from this, especially from ESPN, but the smart money is on no. While a lot of people might compare this scandal to what befell Paul Pierce a few years ago, one of the nails in Pierce's coffin was that he intentionally put his video into the world where Sharpe's seems to be very credibly accidental.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Shannon Sharpe Admits He Wasn't Hacked, Addresses NSFW Instagram Live Video.
