Peyton Manning’s version of the events in 1996 that prompted a former athletic trainer to accuse him of sexual assault surfaced Friday when a Tennessee TV station released a copy of the 13-year-old sealed court document.
The Broncos quarterback said in an affidavit that he was trying to “moon” a University of Tennessee teammate and didn’t realize Dr. Jamie Naughright had seen his bare buttocks.
Manning gave the testimony in 2003 in response to a defamation lawsuit filed by Naughright against the quarterback, his father and the author of their 2001 book “Manning: A Father, His Sons, and a Football Legacy” for their published account of the incident.
Manning said he initially “did not believe that she saw my mooning of” the teammate for making a joke about Manning’s then-girlfriend (and now wife).
“After hearing this comment, I pulled down my shorts for about one second to expose my buttocks to him, or is as colloquially know, to ‘moon’ him,’’’ Manning testified.
Manning’s version contradicts that of Naughright, a former Tennessee trainer who who received $300,000 from the school in 1997 to settle a lawsuit filed in part because she claimed Manning had “forcefully maneuvered his naked testicles and rectum directly” onto her face.
Peyton Manning Affidavit
The incident has resurfaced as part of a wider lawsuit filed against Tennessee this month for a pattern of sexual harrassment and other alleged Title IX violations at the school over the past 20 years.
Manning described the incident as brief and not nearly as extensive as that claimed by Naughright, who was treating the quarterback’s injured foot.
“I immediately pulled my shorts back up while [Naughright] continued to examine my foot,” Manning testified. “My shorts were never down farther than exposing my buttocks. I did not pull them down to my ankles.”
Manning also testified that he repeatedly tried to apologize to Naughright after the school’s head football trainer, Mike Rollo, came to his apartment that night and suggested he do so.
Manning testified that Naughright ignored his telephone calls, prompting him to send her an apology card.