Michael Irvin responds publicly, emotionally to Super Bowl hotel incident
Michael Irvin has now gone on the offensive in defending himself against allegations made by a Phoenix hotel employee in early February.
The former Cowboys wide receiver held a press conference Wednesday morning where he spoke publicly for the first time about the alleged incident that got him booted from NFL Network’s Super Bowl Week coverage.
A clearly emotional Irvin talked about what he maintains are false allegations that have seriously damaged his reputation, adversely affected his livelihood, negatively impacted his family, and caused the Hall of Famer to reconsider how he deals with fans and the general public moving forward.
Levi McCathern, Irvin’s attorney in the matter, recapped the events that took place Feb. 5 at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown, where Irvin was staying while covering Super Bowl LVII in nearby Glendale. A female employee of the hotel claimed that the three-time Super Bowl champ made “harassing and inappropriate comments” after briefly meeting Irvin in the lobby.
“The allegations are nonsense,” McCathern said Wednesday.
Irvin and his legal team filed a $100 million lawsuit against the woman and Marriott, the parent company of the hotel, in response.
Despite court orders, Marriott still has not provided Irvin with the hotel’s surveillance video of the encounter or even met with Irvin to discuss the details of the claims.
McCathern says he was allowed to view the footage, but only under close supervision.
He described the encounter, which he says lasted just over a minute. While the initial meeting occurred just behind a pillar in the lobby and shielded fom the camera’s view, McCathern says Irvin can be seen shaking the woman’s hand, touching her twice on the elbow as they spoke, and then shaking hands again as they part ways.
“She never acts upset,” McCathern said of the woman’s overall body language as seen on tape. “She doesn’t act like there’s any problem at all.”
Irvin’s attorneys say they have filed an emergency motion to have the video released.
“I haven’t seen this tape,” Irvin said. “I want to see what I’m being accused of, why I’ve had to put my whole life on hold, why family’s had to endure it. If I did something wrong, I’ll suffer the consequences of me doing something wrong. But if you did something wrong- you meaning them- then they should suffer the consequences of what they did wrong.”
He went on to paint a stark picture of what it’s been like to be on the receiving end of such serious allegations, with no evidence presented and no chance to properly defend himself.
“This sickens me,” the 56-year-old said. “In this great country, this takes me back to a time where a white woman would accuse a Black man of something. And they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run in the barn, put a rope around his foot, and drag him through the mud, and hang him by the tree. Not a thought about what would happen, not an investigation, not after repeated attempts of people trying to go and say, ‘Guys, here’s what really happened.'”
Former Cowboys WR Michael Irvin said Marriott’s treatment of him “sickens” him, likening it to a Black man being lynched because of a false accusation from a white woman. pic.twitter.com/qZlLp71dW0
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) March 8, 2023
Two witnesses to the lobby encounter, men who had met Irvin for the first time just minutes earlier that night, joined the press conference via Zoom. They corroborated Irvin’s version of events: that his meeting with the woman was very brief, seemed quite amicable, and made no lasting impression on them until after reports broke days later that a claim of wrongdoing had been made against the Cowboys star.
Irvin says he is now left wondering how to best interact with fans that he meets in public after this incident.
“I’ve always tried to be good with people,” he said tearfully before exiting the press conference. “I’m struggling now, saying, ‘Do I not talk to people? What do I do?’ because of this kind of a situation. I know I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Irvin acknowledged that without the two men he had just met in the hotel also coming forward in his defense, it would now be his word against the female employee’s.
And he knows that might play very differently in the court of public opinion.
“This just blows my mind, that in 2023, we’re still dragging and hanging brothers by the tree. That blows my mind,” Irvin said, “that I have no opportunity to defend- I don’t even know what I’m defending.”
