Former NFL QB Brett Favre attempted to sue former TE Shannon Sharpe for defamation over comments Sharpe made during a 2022 episode of FS1's Undisputed. However, the lawsuit has been dismissed by a Mississippi federal judge, per Yahoo Sports.
Brett Favre-Shannon Sharpe case dismissed
Sharpe discussed the ongoing misappropriated funds case in Mississippi on his former show. Roughly $70 million in the Mississippi Department of Human Services went unaccounted for. Here is what the former player said on an Undisputed:
“You made a hundred-plus million dollars in the NFL, and to talk about, well [Favre] didn't know. This is what Brett Favre texted, ‘If you were to pay me, is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much?'… He stole money from people who really needed that money,” Sharpe said.
Keith Starrett, the U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of Mississippi, granted the motion to dismiss the case after determining Sharpe's comments were protected under the First Amendment.
The judge said that Sharpe's comments were made against the backdrop of longstanding media coverage of Brett Favre's role in the welfare scandal. He asserts that listeners would have recognized Sharpe's comments as “rhetorical hyperbole.”
Regardless, Sharpe no longer runs Undisputed and has joined forces with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN's First Take.
It seems as though Favre could not gain traction his in case. Although his battle with Shannon Sharpe is over, he is not completely cleared of the Mississippi scandal.
Still, Favre has continued to deny his wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged.
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