Shannon Sharpe and his legal team are aggressively contesting rape allegations from a woman in a Nevada civil suit.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the woman released audio of what appeared to be Sharpe threatening to choke her.
Sharpe and his lawyer, Lanny Davis, responded by accusing the woman’s lawyer of racism, outing the woman as an adult-content creator, and saying they would be suing the pair for defamation.
The ESPN commentator and Pro Football Hall of Famer released a video on Instagram calling the suit a “shakedown” on Tuesday.
Davis, a longtime political operative, said the accuser turned down a settlement offer of up to $10 million in mediation before suddenly filing suit on Sunday night. The former advisor to President George W. Bush and Bill Clinton challenged Buzbee to hand over the tape to a third-party expert of their choice to discover if it was edited or doctored in any way.
But he did say Sharpe and the plaintiff engaged in sexual “role-playing.” He admitted his client used the word “choking” in the “heat of the moment,” but Davis said it was not intended literally.
Previously, Davis released salacious text messages which he said reinforced that the couple were in a consensual sexual relationship. By the end of their relationship, Sharpe was paying the plaintiff for sex, according to Davis.
“It is our opinion, this is a classic case of blackmail. The plaintiff demanded tens of millions of dollars in a proceeding that’s called mediation. In return for her not publishing this tape, which she showed the lawyers for Mr. Sharpe,” said Davis.
The lawyer for the woman, Tony Buzbee, told reporters Tuesday morning that the texts are from “PRIOR to the alleged brutal assault.”
Buzbee represented dozens of women who settled sexual assault allegations against then-Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson in 2024. He also represented a woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her; that case has since been dropped, but the rapper is now suing Buzbee for extortion and defamation. Sharpe referenced that suit in his address Tuesday. “Tony Buzbee targets Black men,” Sharpe said in a one-minute video posted to his social media accounts.
Both sides have referenced a video of Sharpe and the woman. “I believe he is going to release a 30-second clip of a sex tape that tries to make me look guilty and play into every stereotype you could possibly imagine,” Sharpe said.
Sharpe then challenged Buzbee to post the full “10 minutes or so” of the video and accused the lawyer of “trying to manipulate the media.” Sharpe said the woman’s recording of the encounter was a “setup,” and then he mentioned the alias he says the woman used on the adult content site OnlyFans.
Davis and Sharpe have repeatedly named the woman. In an email to Front Office Sports, Buzbee wrote that the pair have “doxed this young woman and tried to discredit her by releasing private text messages that have no relation to the claims she has made.”
Sharpe said he planned to sue Buzbee and the woman for “defamation.”
Buzbee also mentioned the alleged video in his message to reporters Tuesday morning. “An incredibly damning video does exist,” Buzbee wrote. “That video, which will be played to the jury, is extremely problematic for Mr. Sharpe.” Buzbee said he never planned to discuss the video, which is not mentioned in the lawsuit. “It is Sharpe who keeps bringing it up,” Buzbee wrote to FOS.
Sharpe has said the encounter depicted in the video was part of a consensual relationship that ended last year. Davis and Sharpe have accused the woman’s legal team of editing it to be misleading.
He appeared on First Take on Monday and Tuesday but did not address the lawsuit; he is scheduled to be off Wednesday through Friday. ESPN has thus far declined to comment.
