Shannon Sharpe is currently dominating sports headlines despite the fact that the NBA and NHL playoffs are underway. That's because he's facing a massive $50 million civil lawsuit from an alleged ex. She's accusing him of rape and sexual assault, and she filed the legal documents in a Nevada court on Sunday, April 20.
Tony Buzbee, the controversial lawyer who's been a part of cases of similar nature involving Jay-Z, Diddy, and Deshaun Watson, is representing one Gabriella Zuniga. She claims she was 19 when she met Shannon Sharpe at a gym in 2023. They eventually began a relationship which she alleges ended sometime in January 2025.
However, she claims that the ESPN analyst was controlling and abusive both verbally and physically. Sharpe and his lawyer, Lanny J. Davis, have already responded to the allegations. The NFL Hall-of-Famer released a statement from said rep on his social media in which said that this "is a blatant and cynical attempt to shake down Mr. Sharpe for millions of dollars."
To get ahead of the story and prove just how innocent he is, Shannon released several alleged text messages from Zuniga. They are incredibly provocative and NSFW and the idea behind showing them is to show how she was in an "adult relationship that included role-playing, sexual language, and fantasy scenarios." Additionally, scenarios that were "explicitly requested by Ms. Zuniga."
Shannon Sharpe Rape Lawsuit
However, Tony Buzbee and Zuniga hit back with an audio clip that allegedly paints Shannon Sharpe as guilty. In the alleged conversation, which sounds like an argument, he can allegedly be heard saying, "I'm going to f*cking choke the sh*t out of you when I see you."
Sharpe then responded with a video warning everyone that the clip was heavily edited. Despite all of this noise, he still went on First Take with Stephen A Smith both Monday and Tuesday. The latter is just another angle in this ongoing story, and many have been wondering what he thinks of all of this.
Well, he addressed it all with a special episode of his namesake show/podcast per Complex. Overall, he looked taken aback by everything, and claimed he didn't know anything until moments before First Take on Monday. He feels bad that Sharpe is going through this, but he's also a bit "torn."
He feels that it may have not been the best idea to release the texts which he says are "uncomfortable." "They revealed some of those explicit text messages. That was uncomfortable," Smith admitted. "I don't know if that's a strategy that would work." Moreover, Smith added, "One of the hardest things in the world for all of us to do is to just lay low and be quiet and let our legal team do it."
Later, he did reveal that he's spoken to Shannon about everything. In summary, "I can tell you all that I spoke to Shannon, and he emphatically proclaims his innocence." Smith said that "time will tell" and that is certainly right.
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