It is February 26 and “The Pat McAfee Show” is filming in Indianapolis Week Kojna NFL Scout. McAfee sits behind the table. In front of him is an arch of a chair, occupied by several of what he describes as “Stooges” and the guest presented: Adam Schefter, Espn’s NFL Insider.
Schefter’s presence and scouting from 2025 combine the logo behind chairs that seem to precede the daily object. But McAfee has a different topic.
Teasing the item and asking Schefter, “Have you heard of Ole Miss?” One of his cohorts says, “There is Ménage à Trois …” That, McAfee adds “really captivated the Internet”. After another accumulation, McAfee immerses.
“Some Miss Frat Bro, Kád KD (Kappa Delta) had a girlfriend,” says McAfee, then emphasizes the word “allegedly”.
“At this exact moment, that’s what he reports … Everyone on the Internet: Dad had sex with her son’s girlfriend.” Another person on the set bells-“It’s not great” -a then McAfee adds: “And then it was published … That’s absolutely the worst situation.”
Scheffer, he looked confused and uncomfortable in the chair closest to McAfee, he tries to redirect the conversation: “So where is the (Ole Miss Quarterback) Jaxson Dart in all?”
McAfee has never named an 18-year-old freshman at university in the middle of the legend, but joking about Ole Miss Fathers shoes for the NFL Draft analysis-“We are just thinking.
The segment takes about two minutes. McAfee worked into his show with an unfounded internet reputation and then switched to analysis of Dart’s designs and moved.
Mary Kate Cornett, a newcomer at the University of Rumors, wants to do the same.
Five weeks ago, the first year of business dating another student Ole Miss was. Happy. Self -confident. Outgoing. Then her idyllic experience of the newcomers was pierced on February 25, when Yikyak, Yikyak, Yikyak, was a false claim to her father’s father, a popular anonymous report among university students. Then she gained traction on X and collided with the ecosystem of sports calls to become the highest trendy theme that day. Many posts were a picture of Cornetta pulled out of her Instagram account.
The next day, McAfee became the most influential sports personality dealing with legends when he shared it with his viewers ESPN. (His show also has 2.8 million subscribers on YouTube.) But he was not alone. The former NFL receiver Antonio Brown published MEME about Cornett on X. Two Barstool personalities – KFC BarStool and Jack Mac – referred to the reputation of their personal social media accounts (first published a video that was later deleted, and Mac promoted by memecoin with a cornett name on x). Louis hosts ESPN in St. Louis eagerly dissected the “saga” on their morning show, with Doug Vaughn, a long -time local host of athletes and made a dramatic reading of alleged Snapchat reports accompanied by one of the original posts. The station then promoted a clip on YouTube, Facebook, Tiktok and Instagram in the “infidelity” segment.
“When more popular people started publishing, it really changed,” Cornett said, adding that they brought legitimacy “something completely false.”
When the rumors spread, Cornett removed her name from the outside of the track, but still let the subordinate messages slip under the door. The Campus Police told her that she was a goal, and moved to emergency housing and moved to online courses.
The Houston police showed up to the house of their mother, weapons drawn in the early morning hours of February 27. In the obviously “swatting” – when someone falsely reported a crime in the hope of sending emergency respondents to residence. According to the shots of the security camera and the review of the police report AthleticThe murder division responded to the call.
After her telephone number was published online, the Cornett voice was full of degrading messages. In one, one laughs when he says she was a “naughty girl” and cheerfully asks her to call him. Another male caller says he also has a son in case he is interested. Several people sent her obscene news and called her a “whore” and a “whore” and advised her to kill herself.
“The only way I could describe it is that it is as if you were walking with my daughter on the street, holding her hand, and the mirror caught her shirt and started pulling her on the road. And everything you can do is watch,” said Cornett’s father, Justin. “You can’t catch a car. You can’t prevent it. Just sit there and watch your child destroy.”
Cornett eventually issued an Instagram statement to call “false”, “inexcusable” and “disturbing” accusations. Her boyfriend called the reputation “unambiguously false” in his own post. Justin Cornett posted on Facebook that he had gained a private investigator to explore the “slanderous” cyber attack; He also said that the family contacted the Oxford police, Ole Miss Campus Security and the FBI about the matter. (The Oxford Police Department is investigating this matter.)
Cornett involved legal representation and stated that it intends to act against McAfee and ESPN, which broadcasts its show, and potentially others involved in the spread of reputation. “I would like people to be responsible for what they did,” she said. “You destroy my life by talking about it on your show for nothing but attention, but I will stay here until 5 in the morning, every night, throwing, I don’t eat because I’m so concerned about what happens for the rest of my life.”
ESPN spokesman refused to comment. McAfee, KFC BarStool and Jack Mac did not respond to the messages looking for a comment.
Monica Uddin, a lawyer in Houston Cornett, said that her legal team could also explore the steps against those who may have supported a reputation in an effort to benefit from a cryptocurrency game. According to Geckoterminal, the website of the cryptocurrency monitoring, memecoin with the name Cornett was created on February 26 and February 26 at around 11:00.
“It’s just a wild western version of a well -known problem,” Uddin said. “It’s just that it’s even worse because it’s not a company. She’s an 18 -year -old girl.”
Cornett, who sat in a conference room at the hotel about 90 miles from Oxford – a place she chose because of his distance from the Ole Miss Campus campus, expressed confusion why McAfee and other sports media personalities intensified false claims that had nothing to do with sport. It is also angry that they would be so heartless.
“He doesn’t think it matters because they don’t know who I am and think I deserve it,” Cornett said. “But not.”
He added Uddin: “They increased a lie from the worst corners (x) to millions of general sports fans, just to get a few more clicks and finally a few more dollars.
Because his show started broadcasting on ESPN in 2023, McAfee described WNBA Caitlin Clark as a “white bitch”. (He later excused. (He advocated the link in the middle of what he described as “All-Out the onslaught” of will.) Aaron Rodgers, Quarterback NFL, used a paid look on McAfee show to falsely indicate that the host of Talk Show Jimmy Kimmel was associated with Jeffrey Epstein. McAfee apologized “for being part of it.”
McAfee, his helpers and some of his guests are proud provocateurs, well realize the line at the top. Consider renouncing the responsibility that runs at the opening of the McAfee show:
Even Vaughn in St. Louis, who takes a lower rank on the sports media ranking, nods at the places he can go. His organic on X states: “Opinions are my own, with the exception of those that could get me into legal trouble.” (Vaughn did not respond to a comment request.)
Their hugs of falsehood about a non -public character in an effort to internet influence or a larger audience, or, as the exclusion of responsibility says, is to be “comedy informative”, it carries human costs.
In recent weeks, Cornett has mostly remained in her room. He no longer sees in his house Sorority or in the Student Union. On rare occasions that go out, they wear sunglasses and hat. “I (I can’t) even walk on academic soil, without people taking pictures, shouting my name or saying super vulgar, disgusting things for me,” she said.
She hoped that the insulation would allow the storm to go through, but it persisted. During a recent call in online class, one of her classmates took a picture of her entry and published it online. “I feel honest,” Cornett said.
She turned to her family, friends and her friend for comfort, but were also influenced. Her boyfriend was also bullied online and tortured on academic soil. Cornett’s 89 -year -old grandfather got a call in the middle of the night; The caller mocked him to his granddaughter.
Cornett does not know whether the false accusation one day will cost the work he wants. He is afraid that children hoping to have one day will have online and read something she has never done. And those who take care of her feel equally helpless.
“These people … they can just say what they want and destroy the life of a young girl forever,” Justin Cornett said. “When you start to have the following as (they), you have responsibility to society and the people you are talking about. You need to know the impact of what you could say and how it could affect it. And not to consider it ignorant and naive at best and harmful and deceptive and harmful in the worst case.”
“No one is safe from this kind of attack. It could happen, it could happen to someone you love.”
Before sending a legend of Cornett his masses, McAfee launched his show 26. February talking about his young daughter, as he took her to Disney World (Disney is the parent company ESPN) and witnessed his daughter’s “pure joy”.
“I’m now that I have a daughter?” He asked his Stooges. “I believe so.”
– AthleticCarson Kessler contributed to this report.
(Illustrations: John Bradford, Dan Goldfarb / Athletic;; Images Sean Gardner / Getty)
