Brett Favre to repay Mississippi $1.1M for no-show speeches

Former NFL quarterback Brett Favre will repay Mississippi $1.1 million he was paid for speeches that he never showed up for, the state auditor announced Wednesday. 

Mississippi State Auditor Shad White said Favre repaid the state $500,000 and has committed to repaying the remainder in installments over the next few months. 

The money will be held in a clearing account for a period and then will be sent in full to the Mississippi Department of Human Services to be used for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, known as TANF, White said. 

“I want to applaud Mr. Favre for his good faith effort to make this right and make the taxpayers and TANF families whole,” White said in a statement. “To date, we have seen no records indicating Mr. Favre knew that TANF was the program that served as the source of the money he was paid.”

White’s announcement comes a few days after his office released a report that found $94 million in total could not be accounted for or had been spent on questionable purposes, including $1.1 million sent to a nonprofit connected to Favre for a speaking arrangement the athlete reportedly never attended. 

Favre said in a Facebook post Wednesday night he would be refunding the amount to the state in full and said he was unaware the money being dispersed was paid for out of funds not intended for that purpose. 

“I have spent my entire career helping children through Favre 4 Hope donating nearly $10 million to underserved and underprivileged children in Mississippi and Wisconsin,” Favre, who was born in Mississippi, wrote in the post. 

“It has brought a ton of joy to my life, and I would certainly never do anything to take away from the children I have fought to help,” he continued. “I love Mississippi and I would never knowingly do anything to take away from those that need it most.”