Brett Favre loses to Shannon Sharpe in defamation appeal

Brett Favre’s attempt at reviving his defamation case against Shannon Sharpe has been denied by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Favre filed defamation lawsuits against Sharpe and Pat McAfee last year over their comments regarding his alleged involvement in the multi-million-dollar Mississippi welfare scandal. Both lawsuits were dismissed in 2023.

According to Bloomberg Law, Favre’s appeal in his suit against Sharpe has now been denied, with the Fifth Circuit affirming a lower court ruling in tossing the case.

“At the time Sharpe made the statements, the facts on which he was relying were publicly known, and Sharpe had a right to characterize those publicly known facts caustically and unfairly,” Judge Leslie H. Southwick said, for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. “Sharpe’s statements were his ‘strongly stated’ opinions ‘based on truthful established fact[s],’ and thus nonactionable.”

Favre was named in a 2022 civil suit filed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services, where he was accused of improperly receiving funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families as part of the largest public embezzlement scandal in state history. Favre has not been charged with a crime and denies knowing where the received funds came from.

After the former NFL quarterback was named in the civil suit, Sharpe went on a Sept. 2022 episode of FS1’s Undisputed and alleged Favre was “taking from the underserved” and “stole money from people that really needed that money.” Sharpe added that someone would have to be a sorry person “to steal from the lowest of the low.”

In the appeal attempt, Favre’s attorney argued Sharpe’s comments were “actionable defamation because that reasonable listener is taking the word steal literally and not figuratively.” After hearing oral arguments from both sides in the appeal, the Fifth Circuit ultimately decided Sharpe’s statements were “strongly stated opinions about the widely reported welfare scandal” and didn’t qualify as actionable defamation.

[Bloomberg Law]