“All you news outlets, leave me the f*ck alone.”
Daniel Cormier is fed up with questions about a social media post from his account, which included screenshots of a direct message conversation with Eric Trump.
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On June 14, the evening of UFC Freedom 250 at the White House, an event Cormier was on the commentary team for, a post on his X (formerly Twitter) account quickly went viral. The post included screenshots of DMs from Trump, in which he asked Cormier if he had any inside information about rigged fights or injured fighters so he could gain an edge when placing bets.
“I’m probably going to get a lot of flak for bringing this to light, however, I refuse to stay silent,” the since-deleted post to Cormier’s account read. “The UFC is a sport that I am deeply passionate about I will not tolerate this type of insider behavior. Shame on anyone trying to ruin this beautiful event.”
The message, which was posted with screenshots of DMs with Trump, was quickly deleted but seen by many. Cormier says he found out about it when he arrived at the White House and was told by UFC’s social media team.
“Guys, this is at 6:30 Sunday night,” Cormier said on his YouTube channel. “I go to the event, and they’re telling me, they’re talking to me about something that I have no idea is going on. I have no idea how long it was up, I have no idea how long it had been taken down. Whoever did this, whoever hacked my Twitter, they posted, took it down, because they think that people are going to believe stuff like that. At the end of the day, I would never do anything like that. I would never engage in those conversations. I would never go to Twitter and post that after engaging in those conversations. I just wouldn’t do that. That’s not what I do.”
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Cormier said other messages were posted from his account that he did not write, but he takes responsibility for writing just one in response to the reaction: “Are people really this dumb?” Cormier says he was able to post that message, even though his account was hacked.
“I’m still just barely getting into my Twitter account this morning,” Cormier said. “For the last two and a half days, I have been trying to work with Twitter to get me back into my account, because during the show, they told me, ‘Hey, change the account.’ Guys, I’m trying to broadcast this historic event, and in the middle of it all, I’m trying to change passwords to my Twitter account to make sure people aren’t doing and posting crazy things from the account.”
The UFC Hall of Famer said that posting Trump DMs wouldn’t “make sense logically” while he was on his way to the White House, where the Trump family would be in attendance for UFC Freedom 250. Cormier says the situation has created problems, not with the UFC, but with his sponsors.
“I’m telling you it’s not true,” Cormier said. “I’m telling everyone it’s just not true, and people just don’t seem to want to believe it. … I understand the trolling and all that – I get it, people do it all the time, but it’s like, I’m telling you straight up, it isn’t true. That man did not come up to me and ask me any of that type of stuff. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to do that.”
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Cormier said he and Trump do not follow each other on X, so they would not be able to direct message each other, which is inaccurate. Depending on the user’s settings, direct messages can be sent if the recipient has direct messages open to anyone, whether or not they are a follower.
Ultimately, Cormier is fed up answering questions about the topic, and firmly denies having anything to do with the viral post.
“All you news outlets, leave me the f*ck alone,” Cormier said. “There was nothing to it. My Twitter got hacked. Someone got into my sh*t, and started posting stuff.
“… I would not do that. I just wouldn’t do that – and one of it said I would, ‘Catch a lot of flak.’ I don’t say, ‘flak.’ That’s not something I use. It just isn’t. You can ask anybody that knows me, whether or not that conversation was real. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t real. I’m telling you, not true. Please guys, stop asking me about it. It’s just not real. Somebody got my Twitter, and they took it from me.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: ‘Leave me the f*ck alone’: Daniel Cormier rips questions about Trump DMs
