Not pulling any punches ahead of the biggest game of the year.
The College Football Playoff National Championship game is tomorrow night, with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish taking on the Ohio State Buckeyes in the first national championship game of the 12 team playoff era.
It seems like the entire country is pulling for Notre Dame, in part because of their charismatic head coach Marcus Freeman and in part because...well, everybody hates Ohio State.
Comedian Shane Gillis is a Notre Dame fan himself, having appeared on College GameDay a couple of times this year to support his Irish. In fact, Gillis recently appeared in an advertisement for Under Armour, praying for Notre Dame to win their first national title since 1988.
https://twitter.com/UnderArmour/status/1880620219149987841
And during a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, he had a little fun talking smack with Rogan's producer Jamie Vernon, who is himself an Ohio State alum.
Gillis pulled out all the stops, pointing out Ohio State's connections to disgraced sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein:
"I do have an important question for the podcast. Jamie, who's the Epstein pedophile that paid for Ohio State's roster this year?"
Ouch.
Gillis was referring to Les Wexner, the founder of Limited Brands, which owned stores like Victoria's Secret, Limited Too and Bath & Body Works. Wexner hired Epstein as his financial manager in the 1980s, and remained one of Epstein's primary clients. He even granted Epstein power of attorney over his companies and made the sexual predator a trustee on the board of his foundation.
While working for Wexner, Epstein was accused of not only misappropriating money and posing as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret models in the 1990s, complaints which Wexner apparently dismissed while continuing to allow Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell to run his business and live in a house owned by Wexner.
At least one of Epstein's alleged victims, Virginia Giuffre, claimed during a deposition to have been trafficked to Wexner for sex on multiple occasions, allegations which Wexner has denied and for which he was never criminally charged.
The CEO eventually cut ties with Epstein over a year after his 2006 arrest in Florida on multiple charges of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, but in 2021, after the death of the sexual predator, shareholders filed a lawsuit against Wexner's company alleging that he was aware of the crimes being committed by Epstein.
Wexner is an alumni of Ohio State University, and the wealthiest man in the state of Ohio with a reported net worth of nearly $8 billion. The Ohio State University Medical Center was re-named in honor of Wexner following a $100 million donation, the largest in the school's history at the time, and the school's football complex is called the Les Wexner football complex.
The billionaire remains the largest single donor to Ohio State University, and Gillis just wanted to remind Ohio State fans about their notorious donor ahead of the national championship game:
"Jeffrey Epstein worked for the guy who paid for your roster? Interesting."
Brutal.
Of course Jamie had to also remind Gillis that the Catholic church doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to sex crimes either, and also warn the comedian that Ohio State head coach Ryan Day would come after him for his comments like legendary Alabama coach Nick Saban didwhen Gillis made comments about the Crimson Tide buying their roster. But Gillis didn't seem too worried:
"Ryan Day can spaz all he wants. At least Saban is the GOAT. Ryan Day, born on third, thinks he hit a triple, can talk all the shit he wants."
Just some friendly smack talk before the biggest game of the year.
https://twitter.com/HorsemenPod/status/1879586141655253234
