Dave Portnoy Barstool Sports Rumble Screen grab: Dave Portnoy on X
Barstool SportsFoxBy Sam Neumann on

As the explosive Fox Sports lawsuit, which names Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor as defendants, enters its 48th hour, everyone in sports media is weighing in.

Insights have come from those with direct ties to the network, like former FS1 personalities Shannon Sharpe and Marcellus Wiley, while Stephen A. Smith even went so far as to defend his former sparring partner on First Take in Bayless.

Still, no one has really questioned the lawsuit’s authenticity until now.

Monday saw Barstool Sports founder and president Dave Portnoy join the fray, labeling the lawsuit — filed by a former Fox Sports hairstylist and first reported by A.J. Perez and Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports — as “bullshit.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the details, Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner laid out the 11 most stunning accusations in the workplace misconduct lawsuit, which included allegations that Bayless allegedly offered the former hairstylist, Noushin Faraji, $1.5 million to have sex with him and that Taylor had sexual relationships with Fox Sports EVP of Content Charlie Dixon and co-host Emmanuel Acho to further her career.

But if you ask Portnoy for his thoughts on the filing obtained by FOS, his “bullshit meter is on a hundred million trillion.”

“Just accusing people of shit doesn’t make it facts,” he wrote. “Time will tell. I will say I think all the accused shouldn’t listen to their lawyers + should loudly be defending themselves if they are innocent.”

Like he said, time will tell, but Taylor and Bayless have stayed notably mum. Taylor returned to her Speak show on Monday alongside Paul Pierce, Keyshawn Johnson and Michael Irvin.

Everything was business as usual except for the awkward moment below.

As for Bayless, he remained silent on those accusations as he powered through in a new podcast episode.

But as far as those accusations are concerned, Portnoy is staying on the side of them making “ZERO sense.”

“Who f*cking cares if they had a consensual relationship or not? And since when is [Emmanuel] Acho some heavyweight who gets people promoted?” he asked. “I honestly don’t even know why Joy Taylor is in the lawsuit? Cause she was mean to her hairdresser yet simultaneously spilled her guts to her? Makes ZERO sense.”

Here’s an excerpt from the lawsuit that accuses Taylor of using her sexuality to get on a show.

Faraji alleges that Joy Taylor used her sexuality to secure a spot on another show. This time, with former NFL player and current FS1 analyst Emmanuel Acho, who at the time was a member of Speak for Yourself.

“In approximately February 2020, Ms. Taylor asked Ms. Faraji to meet her for lunch in Beverly Hills. When Ms. Faraji arrived, she found Ms. Taylor with a man, Emmanuel Acho. Ms. Faraji did not know Mr. Acho but could tell that the two were romantically involved.

“A few months after meeting Mr. Acho at the lunch, Ms. Faraji noticed him in the hallway while at work. Ms. Faraji later asked Ms. Taylor if Mr. Acho also worked at Fox. Ms. Taylor confirmed and explained that she wanted Mr. Acho to eventually recommend her on the show Speak for Yourself. Ms. Faraji became alarmed and warned Ms. Taylor that she should probably not sleep with Mr. Dixon and Mr. Acho at the same time, as Mr. Dixon is a very powerful man that may become very angry. Ms. Taylor told her not to worry about it. She explained that she was also now powerful, and once Mr. Dixon was no longer useful to her, she would follow through on her plan to tell the company that he forced himself on her. She would not allow herself to be forced out by Mr. Dixon like other women talent.”

As he continued to tweet through it, Portnoy relayed that he had no actual inside information on said lawsuit. That said, he thinks it “stinks to high heavens and feels like a shakedown.” And he implored his more than three million followers on X (formerly Twitter) to reserve judgment before “burying” any of the defendants, like Taylor.

As of the writing of this article, Taylor and Bayless have remained silent on the allegations. Meanwhile, Fox Sports provided the following statement to Front Office Sports: “We take these allegations seriously and have no further comment at this time given this pending litigation.”

For the talent involved, staying silent is a strategy that Portnoy would strongly advise against.

“They may end up being true,” he said of the allegations, “but lawyers always give the worst advice ever, especially at big companies. They worry about Fox, not the people. No lawyer in the history of the world has ever told me to publicly defend myself. They are always wrong.”

[FOS, Dave Portnoy on X]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann