Appeals Court Sides With Shannon Sharpe in Brett Favre Defamation Case

Brett Favre’s bid to revive his defamation lawsuit against Shannon Sharpe was denied by a federal appeals court Monday. 

A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a federal judge’s decision last October to dismiss the lawsuit over comments Sharpe made about Favre’s alleged ties to the Mississippi welfare scandal on FS1 two years ago. 

“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 wrote in the nine-page opinion. “Sharpe’s statements were his ‘strongly stated’ opinions ‘based on truthful established fact[s],’ and thus nonactionable.”

Sharpe’s comments from a September 2022 episode of his former show, FS1’s Undisputed, were the focus of Favre’s lawsuit against the fellow NFL Hall of Famer. 

U.S. District Court Judge Keith Starrett of the Southern District of Mississippi ruled Sharpe’s comments were protected by the First Amendment when he dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice—meaning Favre can’t refile the case—last fall. Favre could file a petition for a rehearing in front of the entire 5th Circuit. If that is denied, the only option left would be to file a writ with the Supreme Court, which hears a small percentage of the hundreds of requests for review it receives each year.

Favre sued Sharpe in February 2023, the same day he also filed defamation lawsuits against Pat McAfee and Mississippi State Auditor Shad White. McAfee settled with Favre with no money changing hands in May 2023; Favre’s lawsuit in a Mississippi state court against White remains ongoing. 

“So, if that is the poorest state, Brett Favre is taking from the underserved,” Sharpe said on-air. “You made a hundred-plus million dollars in the NFL, and to talk about, well, [Favre] didn’t know. This is what Brett Favre texted, ‘If you were to pay me, is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much?’… “He stole money from people that really needed that money.”

Favre is among more than 40 defendants in a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi Department of Human Services that seeks to recover more than $90 million of misappropriated welfare funds. Favre has not been charged criminally and has denied any wrongdoing.