'Girl Dad' Pat McAfee Apologizes To (Father Of) Teenage Girl Whose Life He Helped Ruin

It's not a very good apology.

If you want to know the truth about what an unfortunately large percentage of Americans has become, look no further than what happened to Mary Kate Cornett earlier this year.

Back in February, some rando on Elon Musk’s X calling himself MAGAgeddon decided to post a bunch of fake AI evidence that Cornett, a totally random college freshman at the University of Mississippi who just happens to be extremely pretty, had cheated on her boyfriend with his father. The post went bananas on the site and soon enough, Cornett’s name was the number one trending topic — with hundreds, probably thousands of disturbed human beings saying every kind of horrible thing about her. It went so far that people even created a meme cryptocurrency called MKC.

It wasn’t true … but even if it were, it would be a completely psychotic thing to do to a person. Especially to an 18-year-old girl. How could that possibly be any of anyone’s business?

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Now, we’ve been through Gamergate. We saw what a bunch of creeps did to another woman they didn’t know for things that could not possibly have been less of their business. But now it’s not just angry incels, it’s full-on adults with children of their own — as one was helpful enough to remind us this week.

On Wednesday, sports analyst Pat McAfee apologized for his part in spreading the rumor on his ESPN show back in February.

Via The New York Times:

“Some Ole Miss frat bro, k? Had a K-D (Kappa Delta) girlfriend,” McAfee says, and then he stresses the word “allegedly.”

“At this exact moment, this is what is being reported by … everybody on the internet: Dad had sex with son’s girlfriend.” Another person on set chimes in – “Not great” – and then McAfee adds: “And then it was made public … that’s the absolute worst-case situation.” […]

McAfee never names the 18-year-old college freshman at the center of the rumor, but he jokes about shoehorning Ole Miss fathers into NFL Draft analysis — “We’re just wondering. His dad … We’re just trying to combine evaluate …” Then another person on set interjects: “Ole Miss dads are slinging meat right now.”

Cute.

Although the nonsense had been trending on X for a while, McAfee’s mention of it caused it to explode even further. It was spread by former football players, Barstool Sports employees and even discussed, again, on an ESPN radio show, with the segment later being promoted on social media like it was a perfectly normal thing to discuss. As a result of all of this attention, Cornett’s phone number was published on the internet, and she got actual death threats and constant harassment from hordes of outraged misogynists. She had to wear a hat and sunglasses just to go outside.

“I [can’t] even walk on campus without people taking pictures of me or screaming my name or saying super vulgar, disgusting things to me,” she told The New York Times.

Someone even called her 88-year-old grandfather in the middle of the night, taunting him about her.

“[A]s a lot of you know, on February 26 of this year,” McAfee began, “we discussed a very viral internet story about Ole Miss college student. We weren't clear at that point where the story originated from. It was all over the internet. Yet, by the time we talked about it, the story was everywhere. I have since learned that the story was not true and that my show played a role in the anguish caused to a great family and especially to a young woman, Mary Kate Cornett.”

A couple of things. The story was not “everywhere.” It was on X — a site filled with nazis, incels, trolls, and, perhaps most importantly, lies. It’s hardly as though newspapers and legitimate news sites were reporting that a random 18-year-old girl cheated on her boyfriend.

It also doesn’t matter that the story was not true. I cannot stress this enough. On no occasion will any random 18-year-old girl’s sex life ever, ever be the business of an ESPN commentator. In fact, there is only one instance in which a private individual’s sex life is anyone’s business but their own, and that is when their sex life involves raping or murdering other people. That’s it. Otherwise, everyone you don’t know is free to fuck anyone they want (of age) and it will never, ever be any of your business.

“I think you all know from tuning into this program that I never want to be a source of negativity or contribute to another human suffering,” he said. “And I can now happily share with you that I recently got to meet Mary Kate and her family, and I got a chance to sincerely apologize to them and acknowledge that what I said about Mary Kate was based solely on what others were saying on the internet or had been previously reported by others and that we had no personal knowledge about Mary Kate or her personal life.”

Again, it was not “reported.” It was not a news story. I am also sure the family was well aware that an ESPN host did not have any personal knowledge about this young woman’s life.

As is tradition, McAfee’s amplifying the rumors about Cornett was supposed to be alleviated by the fact that he has female relatives. Specifically, he calls himself a “Girl Dad” — a term I found nauseating before (also Boy Mom, it’s equal opportunity cringe here) and now despise from the very depths of my soul.

“As a girl dad, I also was very thankful for the opportunity to let Mr. Cornett know that I was wildly regretful for the part that our show, our program played in his daughter, Mary Kate's pain,” he said.

Historically, rape was considered a property crime. The crime one committed when committing rape was not against the woman, but rather a crime against her father or husband’s … property. It was a practice called coverture, in which a woman’s legal rights were subsumed by her husband upon marriage. So she couldn’t own property, any wages she earned belonged to her husband, she couldn’t sign contracts, and any crime committed against her was really committed against her husband or father. This is part of the reason why marital rape was legal for so long.

Coverture laws, however, were abandoned a heck of a long time ago, so it’s not even remotely clear why the only person he mentioned apologizing directly to was Mary Kate Cornett’s father.

McAfee went on to explain that the reason he waited four damn months to apologize was because he wanted to wait until meeting the family, which sounds very much like a whole crock of shit. If you say something incorrect on air, on a news show, even a sports news show, you issue a retraction immediately. You do not wait four months down the line. He could have apologized for that the next day and then met with her family later. He chose not to do that.

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Just a few years ago, none of this would have happened. Just a few years ago, the people feeling the worst consequences of this would not have been Mary Kate Cornett, her boyfriend, and their families, but rather the pigs who chose to amplify a disgusting “story” like that. They would have been kicked right the hell off of Twitter and all of the posts would have been taken down before they could get it trending. ESPN would have likely forced McAfee to apologize immediately.

But that was bad, right? That was cancel culture?

People used to say, “It’s not cancel culture, it’s consequence culture. People are experiencing consequences for their actions.” And that was true. But the fact is, there’s always been a consequence culture. The only real difference is who sees them.