Pat McAfee Mary Kate Cornett: Uni student accused of sleeping with boyfriend's dad speaks out in TV interview after rumour 'ruined' her life

She says the lie, which was amplified by people including popular ESPN host and analyst Pat McAfee, “ruined” her life. Mary Kate Cornett, 19, told NBC News on Wednesday (2 April) that she and her family have faced a barrage of harassment and insults in the weeks since the false rumour about her and her boyfriend’s father went viral online.

She said: “Having your life ruined by people who have no idea who you are is the worst feeling in the world. It makes you feel so alone. It’s a horrible experience.”

The rumour involving Cornett was referenced on “The Pat McAfee Show” by the host, a former NFL player, and his guests as they discussed an alleged “ménage à trois” at Ole Miss. Cornett and her boyfriend were not mentioned by name in the ESPN show.

In the episode, which aired on Feb. 26, McAfee says an “Ole Miss frat bro” allegedly “had a K-D (Kappa Delta) girlfriend.” “At this exact moment, this is what is being reported by … everybody on the internet: Dad had sex with son’s girlfriend,” he says, later adding, “And then it was made public … that’s the absolute worst-case situation.”

The conversation steered back toward college football after almost two and a half minutes. McAfee shared a clip about the discussion online to his 3.2 million X followers. The post, which is captioned “What’s going on at Ole Miss” with two laughing crying face emojis, was still on the social media platform as of Wednesday and had been viewed 1.8 million times.

The circulation of the rumour was enough, Cornett said, to further derail her life. ESPN and McAfee declined to comment.

Cornett said her friends first told her about a rumour that was spreading on YikYak, an anonymous messaging-based app used by some college students, about a college student at her university and in her sorority who was sleeping with her boyfriend’s father. Within an hour and a half of the rumour spreading, Cornett said she already started noticing people staring at her on campus. Eventually, she saw that her name was a top trending topic on X, with “hundreds and hundreds” of posts falsely identifying her as the person at the center of the rumour.

She said that she, her boyfriend and his father were shocked. She said: “It was so insane. It all happened so fast. I was just in shambles. I just felt so helpless and so alone because so many people were hating on me for something that I had no idea anything about.”

After McAfee’s show, others, including two personalities affiliated with Barstool Sports, referenced the rumor online. KFC Barstool posted a video about the incident to his personal account that was later deleted, according to The Athletic. Jack Mac’s post, which was still on X as of Wednesday, promotes a meme coin that contains Cornett’s name. A representative for Barstool Sports did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cornett said she intends to take legal action against McAfee and ESPN, and potentially others who, she said, helped spread the rumour. Cornett added: “This has affected me in such an awful way and has practically ruined my life. [McAfee] never once reached out to ask me if this was true or for me to give any sort of statement to him. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that an ESPN sports broadcaster would be talking about a 19-year-old girl’s ‘sex scandal’ that was completely false”.