Radio Station Fires Gay Sports Host Who Threatened Lawsuit Over Slur

WWL Radio in New Orleans has fired gay sports host Seth Dunlap in the midst of an ongoing controversy over a tweet from the station’s official account calling Dunlap a fag.

Dunlap, who has worked in sports media for two decades, came out publicly in September in order to address the controversy over Saints quarterback Drew Brees working with anti-gay Christian group Focus on the Family.

After Dunlap came out, the official WWL station retweeted something Dunlap posted and called him a fag, leading the station to accuse the sports host of hijacking their Twitter and posting the tweet himself.

Dunlap has maintained his innocence, even taking a lie detector test to try to prove he didn’t send the tweet and didn’t have access to the account.

However, his attorney, Megan Kiefer, confirmed Saturday that WWL fired him at the end of October, reports NOLA.com. She accused both the station and parent company Entercom of pressuring Dunlap to resign, and taking matters into their own hands after he refused.

“The action of Entercom wrongfully terminating Mr. Dunlap has compounded his damages,” Kiefer said.

Dunlap had previously requested a $1.85 million settlement over the tweet, as well as what he and Kiefer refer to as the station’s “anti-LGBT culture,” for WWL to avoid a lawsuit. Instead, the station turned the investigation into the tweet over to police and accused the host of sending it himself in order to extort money from them.

“It is truly reprehensible [the station] would be attempting to blame the victim of its own anti-LGBT culture, and they are only compounding the severe damage that Mr. Dunlap has experienced at the hands of Entercom,” Kiefer said.

The New Orleans police investigation into the tweet remains ongoing.