NFL Hall of Fame Shannon Sharpe has been accused of rape and sexual battery in a bombshell $50 million lawsuit.
In court documents filed in Nevada on April 20, according to NBC Sports, a woman identified as “Jane Doe” accused Sharpe of sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions as well as making verbal threats. Sharpe strongly denied those allegations, calling the lawsuit a “shakedown” on behalf of Jane Doe’s attorney, Tony Buzbee. The athlete later outed Jane Doe’s supposed identity in a video statement.
Sharpe’s attorneys have acknowledged he previously attempted to settle Jane Doe’s claim with a payment of “at least $10 million,” but she turned down his offer of meditation.
Keep scrolling for everything you need to know about the rape lawsuit against Sharpe:
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The Lawsuit
In a $50 million lawsuit filed in Nevada on April 20, Sharpe was accused of committing assault, sexual assault, battery and sexual battery against the unidentified woman.
In court docs obtained by NBC Sports, Jane Doe alleged that she met Sharpe at a Los Angeles gym when she was 20 years old and he was in his mid-50s. In her lawsuit, Jane Doe recalled that her first encounter with Sharpe involved the athlete offering to “buy her fake t**s” if she won a weight-loss competition.
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According to Jane Doe, the pair had “a rocky consensual relationship” over two years, though she alleges that Sharpe inflicted intentional emotional distress. Among a litany of allegations, Jane Doe accused Sharpe of sometimes recording their sexual activity without her consent and then showing the footage to others.
The woman additionally accused Sharpe of becoming more controlling during their final months together, including once allegedly telling her, “I will f***ing kill you,” when he noticed she was trying to share her location with friends out of concern.
Her court documents mention that Jane Doe tried to allegedly pull away from Sharpe after he unintentionally live-streamed himself having sex with another woman on Instagram in September 2024.
Sharpe is alleged to have confronted Jane Doe after she started ignoring his calls, leading to an incident of forcible sex without her consent in October 2024. The woman reported in her court filing that Sharpe allegedly raped her again in January 2025 without wearing a condom.
Her 13-page complaint states: “A woman can say ‘yes’ to consensual sexual relations with a man 99 times, but when she says ‘no’ even once, that ‘no’ means no. Defendant Shannon Sharpe, a man who is accustomed to getting what he wants, completely fails to understand this basic concept.
“After many months of manipulating and controlling Plaintiff — a woman more than thirty years younger than he — and repeatedly threatening to brutally choke and violently slap her, Sharpe refused to accept the answer no and raped Plaintiff, despite her sobbing and repeated screams of ‘no.’”
Shannon Sharpe’s Response
Sharpe’s attorney, Lanny J. Davis, told Us Weekly on Monday, April 21, that Jane Doe’s lawsuit is “filled with lies, distortions, and misrepresentations — and it will not succeed.” He accused the woman of attempting “a blatant and cynical attempt to shake down Mr. Sharpe for millions of dollars.”
Through his attorneys, Sharpe denied all of the lawsuit’s accusations — including “the gross lie of ‘rape.’”
“He stands firmly by the truth and is prepared to fight these false claims vigorously in court,” Davis said in a statement. “He looks forward to vindication through due process and a judgment based on the facts and the law.”
Davis released text messages between Jane Doe and Sharpe which he said prove “this was a consensual relationship that included roleplaying, sexual language and fantasy scenarios.”
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Sharpe subsequently released his own video statement on Tuesday, April 22, in which he dismissed Jane Doe’s lawsuit as “a shakedown.”
“I’m going to be open, transparent and defend myself because this isn’t right,” he said via Instagram.
Courtesy of Shannon Sharpe/Instagram
Sharpe blamed Jane Doe’s lawyer, Buzbee, for orchestrating the lawsuit as an attack on “Black men,” after his previous involvement in suits against Jay-Z and Diddy.
“I believe he’s going to release a 30-second clip of a sex tape that tries to make me look guilty and play into every stereotype you could possibly imagine,” he said. “That video should actually be ten minutes or so. Hey, Tony, instead of releasing your edit, put the whole video out. I don’t have it, or I would myself. You know what happened and you’re trying to manipulate the media.”
In his controversial video statement, Sharpe outed Jane Doe’s name and accused her of “a deliberate setup.”
“What they’re getting [now] is sued for defamation and trying to take me down,” Sharpe threatened. “My career is all about real talk and honesty. I know my family and fans know exactly what this is about, and I’m going to be out there telling you whatever I need to say, just like I always do. I love all you guys.”
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According to NBC Sports, Davis later confirmed in a news conference that Sharpe planned to pursue a “counterclaim” against the woman. The attorney also acknowledged that Sharpe previously offered “at least $10 million” to settle the matter before Jane Doe filed her suit, but she turned down the offer.
Buzbee responded via Instagram on Tuesday by insisting that Sharpe had “breached” a confidentiality agreement that he’d required the woman to sign when they briefly entered into a mediation process.
“On the one hand Mr. Sharpe and his lawyers claim that the case filed by Jane Doe is meritless, yet on the other hand they now have disclosed that Mr. Sharpe offered Jane Doe $10 million in writing not to file her lawsuit. That is a true statement,” Buzbee wrote via Instagram. “Jane Doe was in fact offered $10 million to settle but rejected that offer, choosing instead to proceed with litigation. Sharpe’s team is now trying to discredit and dox her. Sharpe and his team are now, as anticipated, also attacking me. We are not going to be deterred by these tactics.”
The woman’s legal team subsequently released audio on Wednesday, April 23, from a purported phone call between the accuser and Sharpe, in which Sharpe allegedly threatened to “choke [her] in public.” Sharpe’s representatives have questioned the authenticity of all recordings released by Jane Doe’s lawyers.
Reactions
Sharpe’s ESPN First Take cohost, Stephen A Smith, addressed the “Shannon Sharpe situation” during his “Stephen A. Smith Show” podcast on Tuesday, calling the lawsuit “a sad situation.”
“We’ve grown close as friends. I certainly root for him. I know he’s been through a lot in life, he’s overcome a lot of things, and when he departed from Fox, I was more than happy to bring him on board here,” he said. “So all I can speak to is what I know based on the reports, and I can speak about ESPN and Disney.”
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Smith said that he was “hopeful and prayerful that [Sharpe is] completely innocent,” reiterating that his friend and colleague has denied all allegations.
“On one hand, going on the offensive to defend himself, I completely understand where Shannon Sharpe is coming from,” he said. “On the other hand, when his legal team issued out the press release on X yesterday, they mentioned her name and revealed some of those explicit text messages That was uncomfortable, and I don’t know if that’s a strategy that would work.”
Smith went on, “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. And we don’t always know if that’s the right thing to do. I know, and I can tell you all I spoke to Shannon, not in details, but I spoke to him, and he emphatically proclaims his innocence. According to Mr. Buzbee, his client emphatically proclaims his guilt. So where does that leave us? I’d love to tell you I know the answer to that question, but I don’t know.”
Sharpe has continued to appear on ESPN since Jane Doe’s lawsuit was filed over the weekend.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
