Pat McAfee has responded to Jimmy Kimmel threatening to sue Aaron Rodgers due to comments made on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday afternoon.
Rodgers has become known for not having a filter on McAfee’s show, on everything from football to COVID. However, his comments to McAfee took a turn on Tuesday, when he intimated that Jimmy Kimmel will appear on a list tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Of course, Kimmel didn’t take any perceived allegations lightly, and made a swift response on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Dear A---hole: for the record, I’ve not met, flown with, visited, or had any contact whatsoever with Epstein, nor will you find my name on any ‘list’ other than the clearly-phony nonsense that soft-brained wackos like yourself can’t seem to distinguish from reality,” Kimmel posted. “Your reckless words put my family in danger. Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”
Another fascinating layer to the story is that Kimmel of course host Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company, who also owns ESPN, which aired McAfee’s show and Rodgers’ comments.
On Wednesday, McAfee got out in front of the camera and made his response, after seeing the turn the story has taken.
“Whenever you’re free-wheeling and dealing in here, and you’re having conversations, they can certainly lead to some places that causes international news and some things like that, and whenever there’s accusations made about people that can lead to lawsuits — I’ve been in one before, with Brett Favre. Now, how’d that case end? Well, it ended with me having to read a letter basically stating that I know nothing that anybody else doesn’t know publicly already. That I’m not in the know for that whole thing. That kind of then disappeared, but that was a big thing there. How did that come? Well we just started making jokes about stuff. We just started talking s— about stuff. In our show, I think that’s a good part of what we do, is we’re able to kind of just roll with the punches,” McAfee said, regarding his show’s structure. “We’re able to have a good time. We’re all rather invested and studied in what’s happening around the sports world at all times … so we are very much in that world, so everybody that comes on this stage has to be able to keep up with where we’re headed.
“No formal outline of what we’re going to talk about, how we’re going to talk about it. No A-block, B-block, C-block. There’s no scheduled conversations. There’s no scheduled debates. There’s no topics that we talk about before we get in there. There’s just an opportunity to talk about damn near everything for three and a half hours. In doing so, the upside of that is some magic can come that you never knew could come. Good times could be had, laughs could be had. Especially when you’re on two hours of sleep, like we were yesterday after the Rose Bowl. … On the flip side, there could be some things that are certainly, probably — I mean, we’re going to have to hear from Aaron on that, meant to be s— talk joke, that’s become something that’s obviously a very serious allegation, that then leads to a massive overnight story.”
While McAfee has been one of Rodgers’ biggest supporters over the last couple of years, he made sure to point out he can see Kimmel’s side in the current matter.
“I can see exactly why Jimmy Kimmel felt the way he felt with his position,” McAfee added. “But I think Aaron was just trying to talk s---. Now did it go too far? A lot of people — Jimmy Kimmel certainly said that was the case. … But that’s Aaron and Jimmy — they’ve been, you know. We obviously don’t like the fact that we’re associated with anything negative ever. We like our show to be an uplifting one, a happy one, a fun one. That’s because we talk s--- and try to make light of everything. Some things obviously people get pi--ed off about, especially when it’s very serious allegations. So we apologize for being a part of it.
“Can’t wait to hear what Aaron has to say about it. Hopefully those two will just be able to settle this. … Remember, you’re allowed to disagree with people’s opinions. You’re allowed to say, ‘Oh, I don’t — you sound dumber, the more and more you talk, you sound dumber and dumber.’ And we all move on.”
Alas, a pretty measured response from Pat McAfee on the drama, but it’s evident this is an issue between Aaron Rodgers and Jimmy Kimmel. We’ll see if Rodgers has anything more to say on the matter the next time he joins the program.
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