BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 19: Michael Irvin attends the 2022 Harold and Carole Pump Foundation Gala at The Beverly Hilton on August 19, 2022 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
Michael Irvin has been pulled from NFL Network’s Super Bowl 2023 coverage after a woman at the hotel he was staying at made an still-unspecified complaint about him.
“Michael Irvin will not be part of the NFL Network’s Super Bowl LVII week coverage,” NFL Network spokesman Alex Reithmiller said in a statement to the New York Post.
For his part, Irvin relayed his side of the story during an interview with “Shan & RJ” on 105.3 the Fan in Dallas on Wednesday morning.
“Sunday night … when I came into the hotel, they asked what I did and I said, ‘I just went straight to the room,’” Irvin said. “But I guess I had met somebody in the lobby. Talked to somebody in the lobby for about a minute and then I went to my room. And then after I got up there, they said they had to move me in the hotel. I said, ‘Move me in the hotel for what?’”
He continued: “so they moved my hotel, and I said, ‘What’s going on, guys? What’s happening? Why are are we moving hotels?’”
“They said, ‘Well, last night you walked in, you talked to somebody.’ I said, ‘I didn’t talk to anybody. I went straight to the room.’ And then they showed it on camera that I did talk to somebody. I talked to this girl for about a minute. I don’t know what — they didn’t show it to me. They told it to me. I didn’t see it. But that’s why they moved me, because I guess the girl said I said something to her within that minute that we talked, and so they moved me.”
The NFL great described the encounter as “a minute meeting somewhere in the (hotel) lobby,” but that he doesn’t “even remember it really because (he) had a few drinks.”
“That’s why I’m kind of hiding to wait and see how everything comes down,” Irvin continued. “It was a minute meeting somewhere in the lobby. I don’t even remember it really because I had a few drinks, to tell you the truth.”
He doubled down on his innocence in the situation, telling the Dallas Morning News that there was no physical interaction with the woman beyond a handshake.
Irvin is an American sports commentator and former professional football wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL. In 2007, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
