NEED TO KNOW
- Jenn Sterger discusses the 2010 Brett Favre sexting scandal in a new Netflix documentary
- UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre begins streaming on Netflix on May 20
- The hourlong doc follows Favre from his rise as a Super Bowl-winning quarterback to his dramatic fall from grace, being accused of sexual harassment, and scamming millions from a Mississippi welfare fund
Jenn Sterger is opening up about how the initial media coverage surrounding Brett Favre’s 2010 sexting scandal has impacted her life.
Sterger, 41, found herself at the center of the 2010 scandal after a Deadspin report claimed that Favre had sent her a photograph of his genitals, as well as a number of other unsolicited text messages and voicemails in which he had made unwanted advances toward the New York Jets gameday host.
The controversy is the centerpiece of Netflix’s new documentary, UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre, which follows the former NFL quarterback’s public downfall and begins streaming May 20.
“I was never treated like a person,” Sterger says during one emotional scene, which includes clips of media personalities and fans at the time casting blame on her for the former quarterback’s scandal.
“I think one of the reasons why it’s so hard for people to have any empathy for me on the internet is because I’m just a picture to them,” Sterger says. “And he was Brett Favre.”
UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre follows the now 55-year-old former quarterback’s initial rise as a Green Bay Packers star in the 1990s to his tumultuous fall from grace in the late 2000s and 2010s, going from a football hero to a former athlete who has been accused of both sexual harassment and siphoning government funds meant to help the poor.
Favre, who has long denied wrongdoing in the Mississippi welfare scandal, refused to be interviewed for the documentary.
However, Sterger agreed to sit down with Netflix producers to discuss what happened between her and Favre, how his inappropriate advances toward the sports personality were made public against her wishes, and how the public’s reaction to it impacted her life.
Sterger at one point explains “the craziest part” of the whole scandal is that she and Favre have never met. “I’ve never met him,” says Sterger, who worked for the Jets during Favre’s one season with the team in 2008 but never crossed paths with the quarterback. “We’ve never been in the same room. We’ve never shaken hands. We had no kind of relationship, no rapport, nothing.”
Sterger explains that Favre first noticed her from afar in a stadium tunnel before a Jets game. The quarterback allegedly asked a Jets staffer to get Sterger’s number for him, which Sterger says the employee gave to Favre without her permission. Favre then began sending texts and later began leaving lewd voicemails. Then, Favre allegedly sent Sterger an unsolicited picture of his genitals.
But Sterger never made the interaction public herself.
Two years later, Sterger tells Netflix she casually mentioned the unsolicited text from Favre during a conversation with fellow sports journalist A.J. Daulerio, who was the editor-in-chief of Deadspin at the time and later published the information without Sterger’s consent.
“I had said to a couple people, at the end of this, if there are two scumbags out of this situation, it’s myself and Brett Favre,” Daulerio told CNN’s Reliable Sources program in a clip shown during the Netflix doc.
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
Sterger, who had made a career as a sports media personality in the years prior to the Favre scandal, says she began to shy away from having a public profile after the media firestorm that followed the sexting scandal.
The Netflix doc also includes interviews with Sterger’s bodyguard during Jets games, who called Favre’s actions “disgusting,” as well as other sports media personalities, reporters and former NFL players who all place the blame squarely on Favre throughout the episode.
“We’ve just seen these things play out too many times,” sports media personality Jemele Hill, says in the doc. “We know that when it comes to a superstar athlete being accused of inappropriate behavior with a woman, it’s the woman who’s gonna get the brunt of it. Nobody’s questioning why a married man would be sending these kind of photos to a woman he doesn’t know. This woman — who wanted no part of this, who was only trying to do her job, only trying to make a career path for herself — that she has to be subjugated to that is telling.”
UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre is streaming now on Netflix.
Read the full article here
