Boston Radio: WEEI Suspends Talker Christian Fauria

Christian Fauria

WEEI has suspended host Christian Fauria for five days for mocking Don Yee, the agent for Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo, by using a racially stereotyped Asian accent on Friday’s program.

In a statement posted on WEEI.com late Friday night, the station said Fauria’s comments were “an insensitive and ill-conceived attempted at humor” and that it did not “support or condone” his words.

Fauria, a former Patriots tight end and co-host of the midday “Ordway, Merloni, and Fauria” show, mocked Yee while discussing reporter Ron Borges’s erroneous story in Friday’s Boston Herald.

Don Yee

Borges was pranked via text by a sports radio listener pretending to be Yee, telling him that Brady would skip the Patriots’ offseason organized team activities unless he was paid like Garoppolo, his former backup who signed a five-year, $137.5 million contract with the 49ers Thursday.

The texts between the fake Yee and Borges became public Friday morning. Fauria and his co-hosts decided to do a dramatic reading of the texts on their program.

Fauria, designated to read the fake Yee portions of the text exchange, said, “I’m gonna be Don Yee. For me, I don’t know why, Don Yee sounds like an Asian guy.” He then commenced reading the lines with an over-the-top Asian accent while his co-hosts laughed.

Eventually, the show played audio of the real Don Yee talking. He is of Chinese descent, but he was born in Sacramento, Calif., and does not speak with any distinct accent. Fauria began reading the comments in a normal voice, but slipped back into his accent once because, he said, “It’s more fun this way.”

Earlier today I made a horrible attempt at humor. In a segment during the show, I impersonated agent Don Yee in an insensitive and regrettable way. I want to publicly apologize to Don and anyone in the audience who heard it.

— christian fauria (@christianfauria) February 10, 2018

After WEEI announced his suspension Friday night, Fauria took to Twitter to apologize:

Earlier today during his show, Christian Fauria impersonated athlete agent, Don Yee in an insensitive and ill-conceived attempt at humor. We regret Christian’s commentary and we apologize to Mr. Yee and those offended by the segment.

— WEEI (@WEEI) February 10, 2018

The controversy is WEEI’s second in as many weeks. Last Monday, fill-in host Alex Reimer was suspended indefinitely after using a disparaging phrase while referring to Brady’s 5-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile, The Boston Herald released a statement Friday afternoon addressing Ron Borges' column from earlier in the day, which appeared in the Friday edition of the paper.

"A column by Ron Borges in today’s Herald regarding Patriot Tom Brady’s salary discussions was based on information which proved to be false," it reads. "The Herald apologizes to Brady, his agent Don Yee and the Patriots, and to our readers for this erroneous report. Borges’ column has been suspended pending further review."

Kirk & Callahan revealed Friday morning that a texter "Nick in Boston" was pretending to be Tom Brady's agent Don Yee when texting Borges. The texts informed Borges that Brady was intent on sitting out the Patriots' OTAs unless he was compensated like his former backup, Jimmy Garoppolo, who agreed to the largest deal in NFL history (5 years, $137.5 million) Thursday.