Pat McAfee Defends Controversial Larry Nassar Joke, Bemoans ‘All-Out Onslaught Against Me’

A day after receiving plenty of online flak for making an insensitive joke about former Michigan State sports doctor and convicted sexual abuser Larry Nassar, ESPN personality Pat McAfee doubled down on it Monday, openly wondering why anybody would want him to apologize.

The controversy started when McAfee replied to a tweet from one of his colleagues on the Pat McAfee Show, who had posted a tweet criticizing an alternate Michigan State football jersey. McAfee replied to the tweet, writing, “I think [Larry] Nassar was in on the design team actually.”

During Monday’s show, McAfee defended his joke, chalking it up as simply him teasing his friend.

“There is an all-out onslaught against me right now for simply linking one terrible thing from a school with the most terrible thing from a school to a friend in a reply tweet,” McAfee said. “Talking s--- to a friend. And I do apologize if some people took that in a different way and then spun it in their own narrative to offend a bunch of other people and then kind of did that whole thing. I was simply talking s--- to my friend.”

McAfee went on to claim that, as Nassar’s crimes were coming to light, he and his show had covered the story “more than probably anybody,” and that he was confused as to why anybody would implore him to delete his tweet, adding that joking about Nassar was his way of keeping attention on a “terrible human.”

Nassar pled guilty in 2017 to 10 counts of first-degree felony criminal sexual conduct for assaulting gymnasts for years. He was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison.

“People were like, ‘You need to delete this and apologize.’ I’m like, ‘Uh, why?’ I’m talking s--- to my friend about something that definitely happened at his school … the way we decide to cover it is by talking s--- to somebody who loves everything about Michigan State because it’s his school,” McAfee said. “If I went to Michigan State and this whole thing happened, if [my colleagues] didn’t say that to me, we would be avoiding something that is very serious, very terrible and very real.”

McAfee also said that he thought he and his crew were keeping the victims of Nassar’s crimes in mind by joking about the disgraced former Spartans doctor.

“So I do apologize to everybody that just took my six-word tweet and then said that I was disrespecting this and not thinking about the victims,” McAfee said. “It’s like, ‘What?’ I think we’re thinking about the victims, future victims and everything by reminding people that this motherf----- had a lot of power at Michigan State for a long time while being a terrible human being, and I’m just s--- talking a friend.”