One day after Dave Portnoy apologized for his company’s role in helping spread a rumor about Ole Miss freshman Mary Kate Cornett, Barstool Sports personalities Kevin Clancy and Jack McGuire followed suit.
In a video posted to X on Friday morning, Clancy — better known as “KFC” — expressed remorse for posting a video that amplified the baseless rumor that Cornett had an affair with her boyfriend’s father.
“I want to extend my deepest and most sincere apologies,” Clancy said. “I’m genuinely sorry to Mary Kate Cornett, her boyfriend, her father, her parents, friends, family, anyone who was negatively affected by just a bonehead decision I made to make a really lame and really bad piece of content regarding some rumors that were being spread about her.”
The KFC Radio host proceeded to provide a brief recap of the situation, in which he had posted a TikTok-style video recapping the viral rumor. He then expressed further regret about doing so, especially as the father of a daughter.
“I’ve been doing this for a very long time and I know better to engage in gossip and salacious rumors, particularly about someone who is not in the public eye, not in the industry, not just a regular person who had a very nasty rumor made up about her,” he said. “And so professionally speaking, I am much better than that.
“But more importantly, personally, I just feel real bad. I am a father myself. I have a daughter and I should have taken the time to stop and put myself in their shoes and think about the repercussions of talking about this rumor in any way, shape or form. So personally, professionally, and every which way, I am genuinely sorry. I would like to privately apologize if that is possible or on the table and if there is anything I can do to help fix things or make this right, I would love to do so.”
Shortly after KFC’s video, McGuire took to X to post his own apology for a similar video he had created regarding the situation.
“In February, I made a few comments surrounding the horrible rumors about Mary Kate Cornett’s alleged affair,” he wrote. “I now understand those rumors are fake and the affair did not happen. I regret these comments and want to apologize to Mary Kate, her boyfriend, and both of their families. I will learn from this massive mistake.”
McGuire also included a link to a GoFundMe campaign intended to help victims of cyberbullying.
It seems notable that both Clancy and McGuire’s apologies came so shortly after Portnoy’s comments to NBC News on Thursday. It’s also worth mentioning that Portnoy said that his lawyers have been in contact with Cornett’s and that while the Barstool Sports founder doesn’t believe his company was in the wrong legally, he did admit, “morally, we were wrong.”
Especially considering that it didn’t post any content regarding Cornett to its own platforms (Clancy and McGuire’s videos were posted to their personal accounts), Barstool Sports’ handling of the situation stands in stark contrast to ESPN and Pat McAfee’s after the former All-Pro punter discussed the rumor without naming Cornett during an episode of his eponymous show. While McAfee didn’t reference Cornett by name or apologize, he did seemingly break his silence on the matter during his Big Night AHT event in Pittsburgh earlier this week.
“… Just like the current situation that is happening, where I have a lot of people saying that I should be sued,” McAfee said in apparent reference to Cornett. “I want to say this: I never, ever want to be a part of anything negative in anybody’s life, ever. That is not what I want to do… my lawyers are Pittsburgh lawyers and they’re in here tonight… they have the same mindset as me: empathy but understanding reality.
“And for that whole thing that’s happening, I didn’t want to add any negativity as it was taking place like I did. We will try to figure that out and make some sort of silver lining in a very terrible situation. You can have that promise from me. It won’t be as impossible to be a fan of mine going forward.”
UPDATE: Barstool Sports personality Nicky Smokes, real name Charles Nicholas Longley, also posted a video apologizing and retracting his comments about Cornett.