Yooooo flagrant foul on the play! For those who don’t know Keith Clinkscales is a major player in the media game! And right now it looks like he’s doing his best to keep from getting burned by a major ESPN scandal . Deadspin broke the story late Wednesday with a lengthy article about rumored issues that Clinkscales had while during his executive tenure at ESPN, where he ran the Content Development Group that worked to create shows like “30 for 30,” “Rise Up,” “SportsNation,” and “Rick Reilly’s Homecoming.” He’s also credited with the idea for the Body issue of ESPN The Magazine. The allegations about Clinkscales range from temper issues to inappropriate comments but the most shocking claim is that KC was caught choking the proverbial monkey while flying with Erin Andrews for business. Check out some excerpts from the story below: Last month, ESPN announced it was eliminating its bi-coastal, 25-person Content Development department, which was responsible for the network’s 30 for 30 series, among other things… Shortly before ESPN’s announcement, we received an email from the spouse of an upper-level Content Development executive who is leaving ESPN. “This place is a s**t show,” our tipster wrote. The group, he wrote, had been dissolved to “get rid of” Clinkscales—whose transgressions allegedly included a physical altercation with a co-worker and an incident of masturbation in front of sideline reporter and peeping victim Erin Andrews. Top-level ESPN personnel knew of these incidents, these sources said, but nevertheless kept them quiet… Among the disgruntled was the former content development executive (the wife of our initial tipster), who asked that we not use her name though she fully expected to be identified by her former colleagues at ESPN. We’ll call her Connie… according to Connie, the complaints about Clinkscales were all over the place. Some complained about his creative input and his lousy show ideas. Some b****ed that he was an incompetent manager and was stretched too thin to be effective. Some reported that he was a selective bully with rage issues and often said inappropriate things. Once, according to Connie, he openly fantasized about slitting the throat of ESPYs producer Maura Mandt, making a slashing gesture across his throat… Earlier this year, Clinkscales traveled to Los Angeles with Erin Andrews for a work-related event. Andrews sat in the middle, while Clinkscales was on the aisle. It was in either first or business class. What happened next was related by Andrews herself to both Connie, her husband, and ESPN anchor Sage Steele. At some point during the trip, Andrews saw Clinkscales masturbating in his seat, beneath his iPad. When he realized he had been caught, Andrews told Connie, Clinkscales panicked and muttered, “You know, I’m one of your bosses.” Andrews, still scarred from the very public peephole stalking incident, was angry but conflicted, Connie tells me. She shared the incident with a handful of people at the network, but refused Connie’s suggestion that she go to HR. “Do it anonymously then,” Connie advised. Erin declined. She just wanted it to go away. Andrews did not respond to email requests or text messages from me for comment. A call to one of her attorneys, Scott Carr, was not returned. Another source not connected to Connie recently asked Andrews if Clinkscales had jerked off in front of her. Andrews acknowledged that it had happened, according to the source. Connie’s job was dissolved along with the group. She says that Skipper knew some of the problems she’d encountered under Keith over the years and that Skipper had thanked her on several occasions for “not suing us three or four times.” On Tuesday, she met with John Walsh. Word had gotten out that we were working on a story. Connie was still mum about where the information had come from but that she was aware that people were talking. Something was bound to come out. Said Walsh: “That would be bad.” * * * I spoke with Clinkscales last week. He denied the Andrews incident and further denied having any physical altercations with his ESPN co-workers, but he would not comment further. On Tuesday, I reached out to Keith again and he once again denied the allegations. “Do you have an attorney?” I asked. He didn’t have one. Hours later he referred all of my follow-up questions to his newly appointed attorney, Judd Burstein. He and Clinkscales thought they had figured out who our source was. On the phone, Burstein began to recite, with almost theatrical bravado, this lengthy statement on behalf of Keith: “This allegation is completely, 100% false. Human Resources never received a complaint about this incident and Erin Andrews never made that claim. Keith has in his possession email conversations with Erin after they traveled together and those conversations show no mention of this incident and the emails and the phone conversations Keith had with Erin after the trip were completely friendly…” I interrupted: “I didn’t say that the Andrews incident was reported to HR. I specifically told Keith it wasn’t reported to them by her because I was told that she was still rattled by the peephole incident.” “Right!” Burstein replied. “Nothing to HR. Then where’s the proof? These allegations are unconfirmed and completely fictional. And whoever’s telling you this story—and we’re pretty sure we know who that person is—she better be prepared for a lawsuit if this story comes out.” * * * At 1:24 p.m. today, more than four hours before this story had come out, Burstein called to say Clinkscales was suing a woman he believed to be the anonymous source of our story—which, to remind you, we hadn’t published yet. Hours later, we had in our hands a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, which detailed in public the allegations that we had not yet decided to publish. In the suit, Clinkscales and his lawyers write that “an embittered, soon-to-be unemployed ESPN executive has outrageously defamed an innocent supervisor out of spite and racial animus.” The defendant, according to the complaint, “believed that she should have been promoted to the position to which Plaintiff was appointed,” and was “routinely insubordinate” and “at times incompetent.” The suit accuses the defendant of starting a “smear campaign” and seeks compensatory damages of “in no event less than $75,000,” along with unspecified punitive damages and “such other and further relief as deemed just and proper.” This is an EXTREMELY bad look, to put it mildly and we can’t say that we blame Clinkscales for taking legal action. Talk like this could kill a career. And seriously, who masturbates UNDER an iPad on a flight??? That doesn’t even make sense. Do you believe these allegations? What else do you think will come of this? Read the full story at Deadspin.com
Read the rest here:
Black Exec Files Defamation Suit Over Claims He Was “Loving Up On Himself” Under His iPad While Seated Next To Erin Andrews On Flight
