Peyton Manning accuser to appear on ‘Inside Edition’
Former University of Tennessee athletic trainer Jamie Naughright is back in the public eye discussing her accusations of inappropriate conduct against former Vols star quarterback Peyton Manning in 1996.
The allegation by Naughright, then Jamie Whited, sparked national media attention.
Naughright spoke with CBS “Inside Edition” anchor Deborah Norville, with soundbites from the interview appearing on “CBS This Morning” on Monday and Norville discussing the interview.
Norville said Naughright is “inspired by the women who have come forward” to detail decades of alleged sexual harassment and assault by Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
In a sexual harassment and discrimination complaint against Tennessee in 1996 that listed 27 allegations against UT athletes, coaches and athletics staff members, Naughright said Manning “exposed himself” to her. When deposed in her lawsuit, however, she said Manning touched her face with his buttocks and genitalia.
The 41-year-old Manning, who played 18 years in the NFL and won two Super Bowls before retiring after the 2015 season, maintained in his deposition at the time he was mooning cross country runner Malcolm Saxon in response to a comment Saxon made.
When Norville asked Naughright about Manning’s accounts of the event she said “that’s a lie.”
“I was repulsed. I was scared. I was intimidated,” Naughright told Norville about the incident.
She added, “It was definitely a predator, intimidating anger violent eyes he had.”
The interview will air on “Inside Edition” on Monday evening. The show is broadcast at 7:30 p.m.
“Peyton Manning has been absolutely clear: Jamie Naughright’s accusations are false,” Manning’s attorney Matthew D. McGill said in a statement to USA Today Network - Tennessee. “When her claims were first investigated 21 years ago, she told a very different story. Her current account was invented several years late in connection with her first of several groundless litigations against Peyton. Most recently, she left Peyton’s mother a vulgar and extremely disturbing voicemail.
Ms. Naughright should stop this abusive behavior.”
Naughright, the first female associate trainer at UT, reported to the Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Knoxville that Manning, then a star quarterback for the Vols, had “sat” on her face while she was assessing a foot injury. The incident was settled in 1997 for $300,000 and on the condition that Naughright leave her job at UT.
In 2002, she brought a defamation suit against Manning after he had described the incident as a “mooning” in the 2000 book “Manning: A Father, His Sons and a Football Legacy,” which he wrote with his father Archie and former Sports Illustrated writer John Underwood. Manning didn’t name Naughright in the book, but described her as having a “vulgar mouth.”
Manning maintained in his deposition he was not aware Naughright had even seen him until former athletic trainer Mike Rollo came to his house later that day to discuss the incident.
Former Vol Greg Johnson, who previously has spoken out as having witnessed the incident, again stood by the claim there was “no physical contact.”
“I was in the training room that day and saw what happened,” Johnson said in a statement provided by McGill. “Peyton did not do what Jamie Naughright claims. There was no physical contact. Because I told the truth, Jamie also has harassed and sent me profane messages.”
The defamation lawsuit was settled through mediation in December 2003. The terms are not disclosed.