One of the most infamous rumors in recent sports media history is apparently true.
Former ESPN NFL analyst Sean Salisbury admitted to USA Today that he did indeed “[take] cellphone photos of his private parts and showed them.” The incident took place in 2006 in a Connecticut bar — a detail consistent with an account of the incident a former ESPN employee told Deadspin last year.
ESPN suspended Salisbury at the time, “for then-unspecified reasons.”
His suspension was noted by Pro Football Talk. In late 2006, CBSSports.com writer Mike Freeman reported on an anonymous NFL analyst who had taken inappropriate pictures of himself and showed them to “numerous, uncomfortable women.” The Big Lead then connected the dots, reporting that Salisbury was the anonymous analyst in question.
Salisbury has frequently denied the rumors. In 2008, he told Deadspin that the rumor was “so absurd and such a bald-faced lie … It never happened.” In his 2009 lawsuit against Deadspin, Salisbury used the site’s reporting of the incident has evidence of a “long-running smear campaign.”
In his interview with USA Today, Salisbury said the incident was “stupid … but not malicious,” and questioned how it could “ruin a good career.” Salisbury: “I’ve gone from being on six days a week to disappearing. And it’s not like I wanted to disappear.”
