Radio host apologizes for tweets about Patrick Mahomes’ family that led to QB’s denial
As one of the biggest stars in the most popular sports league in the United States, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is all-too familiar with people on social media degrading him and his family.
But Mahomes felt the need to speak out twice over the past week. First, he defended his fiancee, Brittany Matthews, after people on social media manufactured a rift between the couple as they took in Wednesday’s’ Texas Tech basketball game.
On Friday, a rumor spread on social media that Mahomes had told Matthews and his brother, Jackson, they were banned from attending future Chiefs games. The reason: “they had become a distraction, and their sideline antics are bad for his brand.”
To that, Mahomes wrote: “Y’all just be making stuff up these days”.
Mahomes was right, of course. And the person who shared that message deleted the tweets and explained what happened.
Former Patriots/Chargers/Cardinals guard Rick Ohrnberger admitted he failed to properly vet the story during an interview on Fox Sports Radio’s “The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon.”
“It’s interesting when you’re handed a piece of information that you believe with all your heart is true, sounds true, is from a credible source,” Ohrnberger told Harmon. “And beyond that, it’s from a source that is expressing the fact that the story’s been vetted, and that it’s good for air or for (a) tweet. ...
“I’m not trying to play a victim here because I actually feel contrition for the fact that I spread a story out there that went viral. That wasn’t 100% accurate or well vetted, you know, so that is my responsibility as the broadcaster to make sure that not only the message is clear and accurate, but based on some further investigation and due diligence on my part that I failed to accomplish.”
Ohrnberger, who has a radio show in San Diego, later acknowledged he was scammed.
“This was an interesting situation because I thought I was having a text message conversation with someone who I trust deeply, with someone who I respect in this business deeply,” Ohrnberger added. “Someone who I’ve reached out to for advice from in the past, interview requests from in the past, and the context was accurate. The language was accurate in terms of this person comporting themselves as somebody who they were alluding to be and they weren’t.”
Ohrnberger said he realized he had been taken in when FanSided’s Matt Verderame tweeted the story wasn’t true.
These were the tweets about Mahomes and his family that Ohrnberger deleted.
Verderame tweeted again later and said someone had texted multiple reporters/broadcasters about Mahomes banning family members from future games.
