Shannon Sharpe was on the cusp of getting a $100 million deal for his podcast empire last year. But it came crashing down when a woman filed a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault.
In the aftermath of the lawsuit being filed, the Hall of Fame tight end lost his national TV gig. His podcast network no longer commanded an eight-figure deal. Yet despite the accusations and losing out on his own payday in the process, Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson stayed on as Sharpe’s Nightcap cohost. The show is still regularly churning out episodes on YouTube.
“It was an easy decision for me. We all make mistakes in life, regardless of how it looks. I’ve made mistakes in life,” the former Bengals star receiver told Front Office Sports in an interview earlier this month.
“Who the hell am I to say, ‘Oh my goodness, Shannon messed up, you know what, I’m gonna kick rocks’ or, ‘Oh man, he messed up the money.’ No! That’s not what loyalty is. I agreed to do a show with Shannon Sharpe, come hell or high or thick water. When you get married they say, ‘Till death do you part.’ When he asked me to do that show, I’m going to stick to my guns and do that show, whether he messes up or not.”
Not everyone stuck by Sharpe, as ESPN cut bait with the NFL legend and ended his appearances on First Take. Sharpe settled the lawsuit with his accuser in July but has not returned to the ESPN airwaves since the lawsuit was filed last April.
“I’m built different,” Ochocinco continued. “I’m not one of those fair-weather people that when things are going good, ‘Okay I’m here’ but when things are going bad, ‘Fuck this I’m out.’ No, I told you I’m here through the good and the bad. And the Nightcap product is so good. Look, I don’t like the fact that it happened. Obviously, I don’t condone it. But as far as me sticking by my cohost, I’m not going nowhere. We all mess up in life. I’ve been there before.”
In addition to his role on Nightcap, Ochocinco recently launched a new soccer show, Late Run. The soccer podcast is produced in partnership with Footballco and the newly launched OchoCinco Productions.
The six-time Pro Bowl selection’s most prominent media gig, however, remains on Nightcap, which routinely attracts tens of thousands of views on YouTube with each episode. As far as why he thinks the show has maintained such a large audience, Ochocinco pointed to its “authenticity.”
“It’s not even the sports that make us great,” Ochocinco said. “People come for the sports but stay for the stories. We have stories that can’t be told on linear TV. It’s different. That’s what makes it so fun, and it’s unpredictable because there’s no script. We don’t know what we’re going to talk about half the time … Life, kids, marriage, relationships. Nothing’s off limits and that’s what makes it so fun.”
As for Sharpe, the 57-year-old told FOS at the Super Bowl that he’s open to making a return to ESPN now that the lawsuit has been resolved. The network declined to comment.
