Former sports host Jenn Sterger brought receipts in her first televised interview in over a decade after she accused Brett Favre of sending her inappropriate photos when he was the Jets quarterback in 2008.
Sterger, who was a former in-game host for the Jets, reminisced on the famous scandal in the new documentary, “The Fall of Favre,” which released Tuesday as part of the “Untold” series on Netflix — and she alleged she was stalked and harassed by Favre despite never meeting him in person.
“So, here’s the craziest part about the whole scandal — I’ve never met Brett Favre. We’ve never been in the same room, we’ve never shaken hands, we had no kind of relationship, no rapport, nothing,” Sterger said in the documentary.
“… I was never treated like a person. 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 and he was Brett Favre,” she said while wiping away tears.
Sterger, now 41 and living in Los Angeles, said she declined invitations to meet Favre via MySpace, texts and voicemails, which she revealed in the documentary.
Tim Andre, a former Jets employee who worked closely with Sterger on game days, alleged Sterger was “stalked and harassed” by Favre, who would try to get her attention on the sidelines.
“She felt genuinely uncomfortable [and] threatened [when Favre started contacting her],” Andre said. “… I could just see it slowly wearing on her. When we were behind the scenes, you could see that she wasn’t as excited to be involved [by Week 7 or 8] and how could you blame her?
“… We would be in the tunnel and he’s looking at her and [making] eye contact, hand gestures, like trying to talk to her, and I’m like, ‘This guy is about to go play an NFL game, my God.’”
Sterger explained that Andre would escort her to and from a security office in the stadium, where she would sit in between her camera hits because she didn’t want to be on the sidelines near Favre.
“Just because I didn’t want to be out on the field,” she said. “Anyone else I told just kind of shrugged me off, they were just like, ‘We’ll look into it.’”
Andre recalled a previous conversation during which Sterger explained that her complaints were being ignored.
“I remember her speaking about just that, ‘No one’s listening to me, no one cares,’” he recalled. “You have someone working for your company who feels that another employee of your company is stalking and harassing them. To not even it seriously or just even hear her out, to me that’s scary.”
Sterger came forward with her allegations against Favre in 2010, two years after her contract with the Jets wasn’t renewed.
“At the end of the year my contract was not renewed — shocker,” she said. “And I kind of went into hiding. I just wanted to put the whole experience behind me. It was too humiliating to talk to people about what happened to me.”
Favre, a three-time NFL MVP and Hall of Famer, declined to be interviewed for the documentary.
The Jets did not respond to Netflix producers’ request for comment.
Sterger has since pursued a media career, which includes previous work at Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports and ABC, however the explicit text message scandal derailed her broadcasting career.
She is also a comedian, an actress and a writer.
“My life was ruined and he went to the Hall of Fame,” Sterger said in the documentary.
Sterger said in previous tweets that she was “wrongfully cancelled” and labeled “the Brett Favre girl.”
In April, Sterger announced her participation in the Netflix docuseries and explained that she decided to talk about the scandal and provide “receipts” for her own healing.
“Last summer, with the help of my therapists (yes, I have a team), family, and close friends … I revisited arguably the most difficult time in my life and sat down for my first televised interview in over a decade,” Sterger wrote in her April 29 post, referring to the Netflix docuseries. “And this time, I brought receipts.
“There’s so much of this story people don’t know and so many assumptions that have been put on me… that I realized this story needed to be told, if for no other reason than my own healing. And I’m sure some strangers with little to no knowledge will jump into the comments to ask me ‘WhY CaN’t YoU jUsT MoVe oN’ and my answer is ‘Because YOU won’t let me.’”
Sterger explained that she hasn’t been able to escape the fallout from the scandal “that society thrust upon me like a scarlet letter.”
She added that “this is only the beginning” her reclaiming her story.
Netflix’s “UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre” digs into the former quarterback seismic rise to stardom and his other off-the-field controversies, including alleged misappropriation of Mississippi welfare funds.
Favre has not been charged with any crime and denied any wrongdoing.
He remains a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services to recover misappropriated funds.
