Shannon Sharpe’s Wednesday afternoon joy won’t stop him from joining Stephen A. Smith First recording Monday morning.

TMZ Sports reports that Sharpe will not face any disciplinary action from ESPN for inadvertently allowing America to listen in on his sex, according to an anonymous source at the network. According to the source, Sharpe is expected to be part of its regular programming on First recording next Monday and Tuesday.

Sharpe’s first-ever Instagram Live appearance was a memorable one, one that took place during a sexual encounter on Wednesday afternoon. His three million-plus Instagram viewers couldn’t see anything of the encounter, but they could hear a lot. Screenshots of the Instagram Live session quickly spread across social media, leading to someone from Sharpe’s team stopping the stream and posting a message claiming he’d been hacked.

Later on Wednesday, Sharpe continued Nightcap with co-host Chad Johnson and admitted that he wasn’t hacked, meaning those sex noises you heard were coming from the Pro Football Hall of Famer. Sharpe called the Instagram Live event an accident and claimed he didn’t know how it happened.

During his story about NightcapSharpe also said he quickly called ESPN and The Volume executives to tell them what had happened, insinuating that those professional relationships would remain intact. TMZ Sports has now all but confirmed that Sharpe will not face any punishment from ESPN for reporting.

While the NFL star turned media mogul could rest assured that his audio-only sex tape wouldn’t hurt his massively growing podcast platform, Sharpe still had to worry about how ESPN would respond. In 2021, ESPN fired Paul Pierce after he went on Instagram Live drinking and smoking while exotic dancers performed in the background. Despite this precedent, ESPN can now rest assured that Pierce’s Instagram Live controversy was intentional, while Sharpe’s was ostensibly a mistake.

Sharpe joined ESPN as First recording employee last year after his public split with Skip Bayless and FS1. And after two brief “prove-it” deals during the NFL and NBA seasons, Sharpe signed a four-year contract in June to remain with ESPN.

(TMZ Sports)