In his first public comments as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals, veteran linebacker James Harrison shared with the media a nickname he says has been applied to him throughout his career.
“Massage whore.”
The awkward-sounding label, which relates to his receipt of massages and not his dispensation of them, was scrubbed from the transcript of his comments prepared by the Bengals. But it appears in the video of the session that accompanies the scrubbed transcript.
“I’ve always been what everybody’d like to call -- excuse my English -- is massage whore,” Harrison said. “I can’t think of nothing else. They done called me it so long I’m starting to believe it.”
The question came up after Harrison explained that he spends between $400,000 and $600,000 per year “on body work, as far as taking care of my body, year-in and year-out.”
“I have a hyperbaric chamber,” Harrison said. “I rent a hyperbaric chamber when I’m in Arizona. I have massages and I bring people in from New York, Arizona to where I’m at. There’s that cost. Like I said, I get body work almost every single day except Saturday and Sunday. I have a homeopathic doctor and I do a lot of homeopathic things. It’s just a lot, supplements, so on and so forth.”
The transcript also suggests that Harrison gave a potentially disrespectful assessment of quarterback Andy Dalton when asked to provide Harrison’s view of the third-year player: “I don’t have a view,” Harrison said. “Next question.” The video and audio suggests something far less dismissive of the quarterback.
Besides, it’s not as if Harrison called Dalton a “massage whore.”