No matter what Michael Irvin does from here, he clearly will not be put back on Super Bowl press conference after allegations came out about misconduct from a woman he met at a hotel.
The former Dallas Cowboys wide receiver and Pro Football Hall of Famer filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages, alleging he was falsely accused of misconduct by a female employee at a Phoenix hotel. His lawsuit came after he was pulled off the remainder of NFL Network’s Super Bowl week coverage following a complaint about his behavior in a hotel on Sunday.
As they are accustomed to doing, TMZ Sports found some witnesses on that night that are backing Irvin on what happened between him and the woman.
The first witness was Phi Watkins, who claims he watched and listened to the interaction between 56-year-old Irvin and his alleged accuser. He described the interaction as “positive” and “friendly”.
“It was a positive, friendly conversation. They had a brief interaction, it was 30, 40 seconds, he kept his distance at all times, stood about a meter away from her, they ended with a handshake and he literally turned around and went to the lift.”
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He denied that anything improper happened.
“Not at all. Not at all. There was a little bit of laughter. Obviously a jovial conversation. Nothing untoward for me to actually take notice of what was going on,” Watkins said.
They then spoke to a second alleged witness, Bryn Davis from Philadelphia, who echoed Watkins’ story.
“We walked back to go into the bar, [Irvin] went straight to go to his hotel room, and I guess somebody that worked there, I don’t know if it was a waitress or a bartender I guess came up and said, ‘Hey Michael Irvin.’ And he said, ‘Oh, nice to meet you, I’m Michael’ and shook her hand.”
“The crazy part was it was like a 30-second interaction. It could’ve been a minute. I didn’t really think much of it ’cause it was just a fan kind of thing.”
Davis came away extremely shocked when he later learned that Irvin had been accused of misconduct.
“I woke up I guess this morning and saw this thing that said, ‘Michael Irvin [misconduct]’, and I was like, God, I just took a picture with that guy, I can’t believe it.’ and then I read it and it was from the night I was there and I was like, this is baffling, cause I saw it and I never witnessed something like that happen before.”
The lawsuit alleges a hotel manager reported “false information” to the NFL, accusing Irvin of improper behavior toward a hotel employee. Irvin was then “shockingly woken up by a crew of security” and removed from the hotel “without any explanation or questions,” the lawsuit said.
Irvin will have to miss the Super Bowl, but he has all offseason to clear his name.
