Mary Kate Cornett, an 18-year-old Ole Miss freshman, is gearing up for a legal showdown with Pat McAfee and ESPN after a wild rumor about her personal life blew up, and she’s not holding back. The whole mess kicked off in late February 2025 when a fake claim (that she’d hooked up with her boyfriend Evan Solis’ dad) popped up on the anonymous app YikYak.
It spiraled fast, landing on X as a top trend, and by February 26, McAfee was chatting it up on his ESPN show. “Have you heard about Ole Miss?” he teased guest Adam Schefter, diving into the “ménage à trois” gossip without naming her, but the damage was done. Now, Cornett’s fighting back, saying it’s “ruining my life.”
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“I would like people to be held accountable for what they’ve done,” Cornett told reporters, her voice raw with frustration. “You’re ruining my life by talking about it on your show for nothing but attention, but here I am staying up until 5 in the morning, every night, throwing up, not eating because I’m so anxious about what’s going to happen for the rest of my life.”
What started as a college prank turned into a nightmare. Her phone number got leaked, she’s dodging “vulgar, disgusting” shouts on campus, and her mom even faced a swatting scare with cops at their Houston home. X posts are buzzing-some fans back her, others debate McAfee’s role.
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Her attorney, Monica Uddin, isn’t mincing words either. “This is just a Wild West version of a very familiar problem,” she said, slamming how the lie went from shady corners of X to millions via McAfee’s platform. “It’s even worse because it’s not a company-it’s an 18-year-old girl.”
The rumor’s fallout forced Cornett into emergency housing at Ole Miss, swapping in-person classes for online ones-her freshman year flipped upside down. Her dad, Justin, hired a private investigator, and they’ve tapped the FBI and Oxford police for help tracking the culprits.
McAfee’s segment, two minutes of “allegedly” sprinkled chatter,didn’t name Cornett, but the internet sleuths connected the dots fast. “They don’t think it matters because they don’t know who I am,” she added, calling out the casual cruelty. From Barstool’s memecoin stunts to Antonio Brown’s X posts, the pile-on’s been relentless-her family’s calling it a “coordinated cyberattack.” With legal action brewing, Cornett’s ready to swing back at the media giants she says turned her life into a viral punchline.
