Six weeks after deleting his response to the Olympic boxing controversy featuring Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, Dan Orlovsky says ESPN did not instruct him to remove the post.
Orlovsky joined The Pat McAfee Show Tuesday afternoon. And just before Orlovsky’s segment ended, McAfee asked about his deleted social media post from last month, questioning whether that decision came as a directive from ESPN. The Pat McAfee Show was still live on ESPN when the question was asked.
“Hey, before we have a hard out here on ESPN, didn’t want to bring it up obviously, did ESPN tell you to delete that tweet or no?” McAfee asked. “I just need to know. Can you tell me? That’s all you need to say, did ESPN tell you to delete that tweet or no?”
“ESPN did not, nor did anyone associated with ESPN tell me to delete that tweet.” Orlovsky answered through a bit of an awkward chuckle.
That tweet was a social media post on X from Aug. 1 that read “Protect our daughters.” The message by Orlovsky came in the wake of disingenuous takes misidentifying Khelif’s gender after Italian boxer Angela Carini quit their match at the Paris Olympics. McAfee was among those who amplified the controversy surrounding Khelif, going on a lengthy rant where he called the match “unfair,” referenced transgender athletes and claimed the women’s boxer was “deemed a male.”
But shortly after Orlovsky attempted to join the social media noise with the message of “Protect our daughters,” he deleted the post without an explanation, or follow up.
“I get where you were standing,” McAfee said. “You feel like, ‘I could lose my job. I don’t need to be that.’ Everybody has attacked you. We want to let you know, we think you’re a good dude. We think you are a good dude, Dan. I think you obviously made a little whoopsie there in that particular situation, and we move on.”
Orlovsky agreed in assessing the post as a “whoopsie.”
The whoopsie part, however, was less about the actual post and more about falling in line with the misdirected attempt at using Khelif to make an argument about transgender athletes. Khelif was born a female and identifies as a woman; she even competed in women’s boxing during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics without controversy. And one of the people who furthered the false transgender claims surrounding Khelif was McAfee, who ranted about the boxer, seemingly unaware that she is and always has been a female.
Whoopsie.
This was the first time Orlovsky directly addressed his deleted social media post. Orlovsky did speak to Barrett Media about his approach to social media last month, saying, “When you’re an employee of a big company, your social media page doesn’t just get to be your social media page.” However, Orlovsky later clarified that he was speaking in general terms and did not intend for it to be considered a response to his deleted post.
