The legal dispute between Michael Irvin and Marriott continues to escalate.
During Super Bowl 2023 week in February, Irvin was removed from his broadcasting responsibilities from NFL Network after a female employee at the Renaissance Phoenix Hotel & Spa accused him of harassing her.
Irvin has sued Marriott for $100 million and later compared the situation to a modern-day lynching in a press conference.
Marriott filed a motion on Friday related to the suit saying that Irvin’s characterization of the incident was inaccurate and accusing him of making unwanted sexual advances.
“Irvin’s counsel provided a self-serving, inaccurate summary of the video footage Marriott produced, including his claim that the footage proves Irvin did nothing wrong and then turned the microphone over to Irvin to make racially charged statements,” Marriott claimed in the motion, as covered by USA Today.
“This sickens me,” Irvin said in a press conference earlier this week. “Because in this great country this takes me back to a time where a white woman would accuse a black man of something, and they would take a bunch of guys that were above the law, run into the barn, put a rope around his foot, and drag him through the mud and hang him by the tree.”
In its filing, Marriott claims that Irvin “appeared to be visibly intoxicated” when he approached the accuser, shook her hand, told her she was attractive and asked if she was a football fan.
“Irvin also reached out and touched the Victim’s arm during this conversation without her consent, causing her to step back, becoming visibly uncomfortable,” the filing continued. “Irvin then asked the Victim whether she knew anything about having a ‘big Black man inside of [her].
“Irvin then attempted to grab the Victim’s hand again and said he was ‘sorry if he brought up bad memories’ for her. The Victim pulled her hand away and tried to back away from Irvin as he continued to move towards her.”
Earlier this week, Irvin’s attorney Levi McCathern denied the claims.
“The allegations are nonsense, and we immediately need to get Michael back to work, and we need Renaissance to apologize to him,” McCathern said.
In an additional development in the suit, federal judge Amos Mazzant ruled that Marriott “blatantly” disobeyed his order to provide surveillance footage of the alleged incident to Irvin.
Marriott had been fighting the ruling but claimed to respect the court’s demands.
“I’ll be very candid,” Judge Mazzant replied, according to the Dallas Morning News. “You haven’t shown that. That’s the reason we’re here. . . . Am I happy about that? No, I’m not happy about that. . . . It seems like Marriott just looked at my order and didn’t want to produce the video.”
An un-redacted version of the video has since been sent to Irvin; Irvin has not yet made the video available to the public.