Shannon Sharpe Will ‘Step Aside’ From ESPN Amid Rape Allegations

Shannon Sharpe is “electing to step aside temporarily” from ESPN, he said on Thursday.

“My statement is found here and this is the truth,” Sharpe wrote and posted to social media. “The relationship in question was 100 percent consensual.”

“At this juncture I am electing to step aside temporarily from my ESPN duties,” his statement continued. “I will be devoting this time to my family, and responding and dealing with these false and disruptive allegations set against me.”

Sharpe said he plans to return to ESPN in time for the start of the NFL’s preseason.

“I sincerely appreciate the overwhelming and ongoing support I have received from my family, fans, friends and colleagues,” Sharpe’s statement concluded.

Sharpe is being sued for sexual assault by a woman who says he raped her twice in two months in her Las Vegas home last year.

The Jane Doe, in a lawsuit filed on Sunday in Nevada state court, is seeking $50 million. It claims sexual battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress by verbal abuse, among other things.

Sharpe “violently sexually assaulted and anally raped Plaintiff two different times in Las Vegas, Nevada, blatantly ignoring her requests for him to stop,” the complaint states. “He did it again in January.”

In a statement posted on X attributed to his lawyer Lanny Davis, Sharpe named his accuser and cited text messages that he says prove that the relationship was consensual. He called the woman’s suit “an egregious attempt at blackmail.”

Sharpe and the woman met in 2023 at a Los Angeles gym, according to the complaint. They soon entered into a relationship, which included consensual sex, the lawsuit says. The sex later turned violent, it alleges. The woman says Sharpe confronted the woman, demanded she take him to her house and, once there, he forced her to perform oral sex before penetrating her.

Three months later in January, Sharpe allegedly assaulted her a second time, the lawsuit alleges. He “grabbed her—pulling her around and positioning her to perform oral sex, which lasted for roughly two minutes,” the complaint states. “Then, Sharpe repositioned her and roughly forced himself inside her.”

Sharpe has also been sued in New York state court by an ex-girlfriend, who alleges he forced her to perform oral sex.

Last year, Sharpe inked a multiyear deal with ESPN that expanded his role on First Take, now the network’s top show. See Sharpe’s Thursday statement here: