Although Michael Irvin maintains his innocence in a sexual harassment case, the NFL Network said on Wednesday that the analyst “remains suspended.”
The network suspended the Dallas Cowboys legend during Super Bowl week after a hotel employee accused Irvin of inappropriate conduct.
In early March, Irvin sued Marriott and the employee for $100 million, saying the woman’s allegations “sickens me.” Since then, his legal team released surveillance video it claims exonerates the 57-year-old Irvin. Also, two witnesses have said that the woman’s story is “fabricated.”
Nevertheless, while the case is being resolved, Irvin will remain sidelined from his role with the NFL Network. The network announced plans for its extensive NFL Draft coverage Wednesday, and a spokesperson told the Dallas Morning News that Irvin “remains suspended.”
That surveillance video shows Irvin and a Marriott Renaissance hotel employee talking in the lobby for about two minutes.
Michael Irvin told me “we used to say in football…the eye in the sky don’t tell no lie.” The Cowboys Hall of Famer says this video proves he didn’t sexually assault the woman. Irvin’s legal team says his interaction with the woman backs up his innocence. @FOX4 pic.twitter.com/RKu73DOKxR
— Steven Dial (@StevenDialFox4) March 14, 2023
Marriott claims a “visibly intoxicated” Irvin flagged down “Jane Doe” and made small talk with her, before the conversation turned sexually explicit. Irvin also reached out and touched the woman’s arm.
Irvin told reporters in early March that the situation is akin to a modern-day lynching.
“This sickens me because in this great country, this takes me back to a time where a White woman would accuse a Black man of something,” Irvin said. And they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run in a barn, put a rope around his foot and drag him through the mud — and hang him by the tree. Not a thought about what would happen, not investigation, not after repeated attempts of people trying to go and say, ‘Guys, here is what really happened.’”
Irvin joined NFL Network as an analyst in 2009.
[Dallas Morning News, Mediaite]
