Thursday Night Football host Charissa Thompson is facing backlash after admitting she fabricated reports during her time as an NFL sideline reporter.
Thompson, who worked for Fox Sports from 2007 to 2010, made the admission during a recent interview on Barstool Sports’ Pardon My Take podcast, revealing that she would make up stories if and when she was unable to speak to a coach during breaks in the game.
“I’ve said this before, so I haven’t been fired for saying it, but I’ll say it again,” Thompson said. “I would make up the report sometimes because, A: the coach wouldn’t come out at halftime or it was too late and I was like, I didn’t want to screw up the report, so I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make this up.’”
She added, “Because, first of all, no coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over…and do a better job of getting off the field.’ Like, they’re not gonna correct me on that.”
On Friday, Thompson hopped on Instagram to clarify her remarks, explaining that she never quoted a coach who never spoke to her, while giving an example of how she would use information she’d gathered to embellish reports.