Pat McAfee wants somebody to say hello to his little friend.
The ESPN sports-talk analyst posted a cryptic clip from Scarface to X on Saturday, a day after he publicly accused a longtime network executive of attempting to “sabotage” The Pat McAfee Show in the wake of a controversial segment earlier this month in which guest Aaron Rodgers suggested that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel could have ties to convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The 76-second video shows Tony Montana (Al Pacino) ranting to a dining room of “fucking assholes” about needing “people like me.”
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“You need people like me so you can point your fucking fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy,’” Montana says. “So? What that make you? Good? You’re not good. You just know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don’t have that problem. Me, I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.”
McAfee posted the clip without comment, but X users in his replies took it to mean the 36-year-old was adding fuel to the fire he lit on Friday’s broadcast of The Pat McAfee Show, in which he called out Norby Williamson, ESPN’s head of event and studio production.
“There are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee said. “More specifically I believe Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program.”
McAfee implied that Williamson was a rat, responsible for leaking information about his show’s low ratings to the New York Post, which published an unflattering story on the “WWE-style” host’s faltering viewership numbers on Thursday. The report did not cite any unnamed sources.
“I’m not 100 percent sure,” McAfee added after taking aim at Williamson. “That is just seemingly the only human that has information and then somehow that information gets leaked, and it’s wrong.”
After McAfee also accused Williamson of having “zero respect” for him on air, several former ESPN employees subsequently waded into the maelstrom to back the host, with journalist Jemele Hill saying that she “could relate” to his experience with the executive.
ESPN has since said that it plans to handle the matter internally, adding in a statement that no one “is more committed to and invested in ESPN’s success than Norby Williamson,” who has worked at the network for four decades.
“At the same time, we are thrilled with the multi-platform success that we have seen from ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ across ESPN,” the network added.
A person familiar with the matter told CNBC on Saturday that there were no plans to suspend McAfee over his comments, and that ESPN was looking to find a path forward with both him and Williamson.
The Post’s report was seemingly prompted by Aaron Rodgers’ inflammatory remarks about Kimmel on Tuesday’s edition of the show, speculating that the comedian might be on the list of Epstein associates that was then about to be released. Kimmel, who like McAfee is paid by Disney, responded with fury, tweeting that he’d never have any contact with the late sex criminal and saying that the remarks had put his family “in danger.”
ESPN apologized, with vice president of digital production Mike Foss telling Front Office Sports that Rodgers’ remarks had been “a dumb and factually inaccurate joke.” McAfee also apologized, saying that the New York Jets quarterback “did go too far.”
However, McAfee also said on Friday that Rodgers would be returning to The Pat McAfee Show as early as next week.
