Travis Hunter should be celebrating his Heisman Trophy win.
Instead, the Colorado Buffaloes two-way star is defending himself and his fiancée Leanna Lenee amid a wave of online negativity.
Lenee received backlash after appearing unsupportive of her partner as he was crowned the best player in college football during a ceremony on Saturday.
Footage showed Hunter’s coach, Dallas Cowboys legend Deion Sanders, allegedly having to tell her to stand up when Hunter was announced as the winner.
More viral clips appeared to show Lenee getting annoyed with Hunter taking pictures with fans at a Heisman party.
“What do you want me to do… I’ll just sit here then,” she appeared to say while looking visibly irked.
NFL legend Shannon Sharpe, who previously told fans to let Hunter and his Lenee “make their own mistakes”, offered the young couple some brutal relationship advice on the latest episode of his ‘Nightcap’ podcast.
Addressing the viral video of Lenee’s reaction to Hunter posing for pictures with fans, the three-time Super Bowl winner said: “There are times when he’s going to have to take pictures.
“That’s a part of it. He understands that.
“You’re coming into a situation where you’re going to have more money than you ever dreamed of. And why is that?
“That’s a part of it. For you to say, when he’s taking those photos, ‘do I have to stay here all day?’, you should graciously and willingly stay there. A month! If that’s what it requires.
“I just have a problem with her sharing. She’s young, she doesn’t understand what comes with it. But I’m trying to enlighten her as somebody that’s been in that space and somebody who understands [sponsorship and advertisers].
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“For the money they’re paying him, I don’t think that’s an awful lot to ask.
“Trav won the Heisman, you didn’t win the award.”
Hunter and Lenee have known each other since their days at Collins Hill High School in Suwanee, Georgia. They have been together five years.
However, Lenee initially ignored Hunter’s Instagram direct messages because ‘he wasn’t wasn’t her type’, revealing that she initially dismissed him as ‘just another athlete.’
Sharpe also responded to those comments, calling them ‘unnecessary’ and claiming she threw Hunter ‘under the bus’.
“And for you to talk about how you left him on unread in your inbox because he’s younger than you… you see you threw that man under the bus.
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“We didn’t need to know that. Why you putting that man’s business in the street? Are you perfect?
“It was unnecessary. Did you have to say he wasn’t your type? That was for nobody to know. You don’t have to share everything!
“It paints you in a bad light.”
Hunter, widely projected to be one of the top picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, saw fans’ comments over the weekend and sounded off on the criticism during a Twitch livestream.
“She’s still sleeping,” Hunter said on Twitch. “You know, when you’re hurt but you just cry yourself to sleep? She drunk an OD amount tonight for no reason.”
“It’s hard on me because I can’t even help her,” he added.
“Y’all hate on me and then y’all go and hate on my girl.
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“Bro, I feel the same thing that she feels. We’re inseparable, bro. We’re with each other. If she’s hurting, of course I’m going to be hurting. If I’m hurting, of course she’s going to be hurting.”
He then came out swinging, slamming those who have never had a relationship and telling them to ‘get a life’ instead of critiquing his.
“You ain’t never had no girl so why are y’all talking about me,” the superstar wide receiver/cornerback said.
“Find someone else to talk about. … Go talk about your girl. Go find a girl. Go find a life. Stop worrying about what I got going on. I know what I got.
“My girl been with me for five years. y’all are just now starting to talk about me… y’all go do something else with y’all life. Clickbait pages stop, y’all better stop I’m telling y’all. Something bad is gonna happen to y’all [if you] keep doing that. Y’all better stop that. I ain’t playing.”
The livestream ended as he told all of his listeners to send Lenee positive messages on social media to hopefully make her feel better.
“I would rather all y’all leave right now and go send her text messages so when she wakes up in the morning, she gets on her phone [and it’s] nothing but positivity,” he said.
“Nothing but positive energy.”
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