The disclaimer on the front of Pat McAfee’s show.
THE LEAD: Pat McAfee, former NFL punter and current podcast maven, amplified an internet rumor on his show about Ole Miss quarterback Jaxon Dart and his girlfriend, Mary Kate Cornett. The unsupported allegation was that the 18-year-old freshman student was involved in a “triangle” of sexual relations with Dart and Dart’s father.
After suffering weeks of abuse, threats and other unpleasantness via the Online Idiot Brigade of Dude-Bros, Cornett plans to sue for defamation:
Now she is looking to hold accountable those who contributed to ruining her life, with McAfee and his network, ESPN, clearly in her sights.
“I’m not a public figure that you can go talk about on your show to get more views,” Cornett said on NBC.
BACKGROUND: McAfee is one of several larger “main-stream” media outlets that amplified this rumor. Barstool Sports folks promoted the rumor, along with a meme coin of Cornett. Former NFL player Antonio Brown posted a meme about the rumor. And this doesn’t count the number of other yahoos and local “shock-jock” idiots who did their own hot takes on the topic.
As a result, Cornett’s life has become a literal living hell:
As the rumor spread, Cornett removed her name from outside her dorm room, but she still had vile messages slipped under her door. Campus police told her she was a target, and she moved into emergency housing and switched to online courses.
Houston police showed up to her mother’s house, guns drawn, in the early hours of Feb. 27, in an apparent instance of “swatting” – when someone falsely reports a crime in hopes of dispatching emergency responders to a residence. According to security camera footage and a police report reviewed by The Athletic, the homicide division responded to the call.
After her phone number was posted online, Cornett’s voicemail was filled with degrading messages. In one, a man laughs as he says that she’s been a “naughty girl” and cheerfully asks her to give him a call. Another male caller says that he has a son, too, in case she’s interested. Several people texted her obscene messages, calling her a “whore” and a “slut” and advised her to kill herself.
UNDERSTANDING THE LAW: I talked to a couple Legal Eagle friends about this and they’re pretty much in agreement that anything from a defamation suit to an invasion of privacy case would likely tilt in Cornett’s favor. The key things to consider are this:
- Cornett is not a public figure by any reasonable definition of the term, which means defamation is easier to prove. Yes, she’s dating a high-profile college athlete in the days of NIL money, but that doesn’t make her fair game. If she were a high-profile athlete or if she were promoting her personal brand of something or other online with a “brought to you by Jaxon Dart’s girlfriend,” McAfee’s actions would remain despicable, but the law could be a bit murkier. As a private individual, the standard she has to prove is negligence, not actual malice.
- The rumor and the people spreading it (especially McAfee) have offered no proof for the allegations they are making about Cornett. As far as anyone can tell, this started out as a random post on YikYak and just kind of spread all over the place. Truth is one of the best “silver bullet” defenses against libel, which is why accuracy is so vital in journalism. If you accuse your university president of running a cocaine ring out of the basement of the student union, and you can prove it, you’re likely up for a Pulitzer, as opposed to a multi-million-dollar legal bill.
- McAfee is not protected by the word “allegedly,” despite him and his panel of merry men slathering it about like mayo on a BLT. As we’ve discussed before, “allegedly” offers no legal protection.
- McAfee is also not protected by his stupid disclaimer about it just being a joke-y show with a bunch of “stooges” just throwing bull around. If simple disclaimers like that worked, I’d put one on the back of Amy’s truck that says, “Disclaimer: I have a lead foot and a total disregard for my speedometer, so don’t pull me over to ticket me. I won’t change my behavior.”
- Hyperbole doesn’t protect him either. The concept of hyperbole is that something has to be so outlandish that no reasonable person would believe it to be true. That’s why the Flynt v. Falwell case ended up in the favor of the porn producer, not the televangelist.
DOCTOR OF PAPER HOT TAKE: The first and most obvious thought is that Pat McAfee should know better than to do this. He’s 37 years old, so he’s been a grown-up for quite some time. He graduated with a communications degree from West Virginia University, so it’s likely he ran into some course at some point about what is and isn’t legal to say on air. He’s got a listener base of nearly 3 million people, so he should know that anything he says has a real chance to have a significant impact.
Even if he were none of those things, basic human decency plus the ability to observe the carnage that has befallen this poor kid* should have clued him in that it’s time to call off the dogs and apologize about this. (*Yes, the law considers her an adult, but she’s still basically a kid. Tell me you felt like a fully formed adult ready to deal with the world at large and I’ll be hard-pressed to believe you.)
Life as a teenager is ridiculously hard as it is. People are angry, petty and stupid. You feel lost and unable to control anything. Your mind races and wanders all at the same time as you try to figure things out for yourself, as every adult around you seems to be asking, “So, what are you going to do next?”
That doesn’t even account for the way in which social media has amplified the “Mean Girls” aspects of life, in which rumors spread more quickly, people get more vitriolic and anxiety can become amplified many times over. The crap teens say to their peers on a daily basis on social media channels could peel paint and give a truck driver the vapors. Now, imagine that it’s the entire world seemingly aligning against you for no good reason other than some chucklehead thought it would be funny to tell people you slept with someone’s dad.
I can’t imagine a way out. Actually, I can and others have as well, which is devastating beyond belief.