Photo:Nicholas Hunt/Getty
Nicholas Hunt/Getty
Shannon Sharpeis leaving his FS1 showSkip and Shannon: Undisputed, according to a report.
The former NFL star, 54, has reached a buyout with the network, ending his seven-year tenure alongside co-hostSkip Bayless,theNew York Postreports.
Sharpe is expected to tape his final appearance after the NBA Finals conclude later this month, per the outlet, and his popular podcastClub Shay Shaywill also sever ties with the network.
Sharpe has not confirmed the report, buthe has liked tweetsreferencing his departure, including one about his relationship with Bayless “getting progressively worse.”
Through the years, Sharpe and Bayless, 71, have often had different takes on sports stories.
Sharpe notably took issue with a tweet Bayless wrote aboutDamar Hamlin, following the Buffalo Bills safety’s collapse during a game in January.
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“No doubt the NFL is considering postponing the rest of this game — but how?” Bayless wrote at the time. “This late in the season, a game of this magnitude is crucial to the regular-season outcome … which suddenly seems so irrelevant.”
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The Hall of Fame tight end and the former newspaper columnist debuted their show in 2016, following Bayless’ exit from ESPN’sFirst Take, which he hosted withStephen A. Smith.Earlier this year, Smith offered his own thoughts about Bayless, whom he called a “professional contrarian”during a guest spotonThe Mike Missanelli Podcast.
“He’s different, man. He’s definitely different,” Smith said. “What I will tell you is this. Skip is a genuine, authentic, professional contrarian. He firmly believes in thinking that he thinks differently than anyone else on the planet. He is diametrically opposed to flowing with conventional wisdom. He believes that he sees what no one either sees or don’t have the courage to verbalize like he does. That’s how he thinks. And for people who think he makes stuff up…not at all, he believes it.”
As for Sharpe — who previously served as a longtime NFL analyst at CBS — the news of his departure serves as another recent headline for the football great.
Earlier this year, Sharpe was one of three people whom NFL Hall of Fame quarterbackBrett Favrefiled lawsuits against, claiming that they had defamed him and ruined his “good name” in the wake of Favre’sinvolvement in a Mississippi welfare fraud scandal.The complaint alleged, per CNN, that Sharpe called Favre a “sorry mofo to steal from the lowest of the low,” and that Favre “stole money from people that really needed that money.”
“I take full responsibility for what transpired. It does not matter what Dillon Brooks said or how many times he said it,“Sharpe saidon the show. “Me being the responsible person, me having the platform I have, and having so many people look up to me, I was wrong. I should have lowered the temperature in the arena. Instead, I turned the temperature up, and I let it get out of hand.”
source: people.com
