Former Wide Receiver Steve Smith Sr. Is Allegedly Having an Affair With a Married Woman

Over the course of his decade-plus long NFL career, Steve Smith Sr. made a remarkable impact on the NFL. He's now been retired for almost 10 years, and Steve is now in the headlines for reasons that have nothing to do with the remarkable stats he put up while he was playing.

Steve has now been accused of having an affair with a married woman named Nicole Martinez, and many want to know whether that's true. Here's what we know about the allegations.

Steve was accused of having an affair in a series of now-deleted X (formerly Twitter) posts by a man named Tony Martinez, whose handle is @Lambeaughini. In the posts, Tony claimed that Steve was having an affair with his wife, who works as a member of Marching Ravens, the marching band for the Baltimore Ravens, which was Steve's last team in the NFL. Tony also shared what he claimed were explicit screenshots between his wife Nicole and Steve.

Steve is married, has four children, and works as an analyst on the NFL Network.

The account also posted a video that he claimed to be a phone call with Steve. On the call, Tony accused Steve of having sex with his wife and then asked, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

"Sorry," Steve allegedly replied. When he was pressed to say more, he remained silent and then eventually hung up.

Steve has not yet addressed the allegations publicly, and the X account that posted the allegations has since been deleted.

Given the erasure of the allegations, it's unclear what will come next in this saga, but it seemed like the X account had plenty of proof at its disposal. For now, though, Steve seems to be letting the allegations spread, in part to see whether they peter out on their own.

Both during his playing career and in the years since, Steve has been open about his faith and even went on a mission in 2007 to talk to Togo and Nigeria, where he talked to soccer players about his faith.

This is not the first time, though, that Steve's name has come up in connection with women who were not his wife.

In 2017, The Charlotte Observer reported that he had paid the college tuition for Twitter personality and author Elexus Jionde. In explaining his decision, he said, "It's not about taking and how much can you get for yourself. It's about your life and (taking advantage of) all the resources and applying them and then paying it forward to someone else."

While Steve was never accused of having an affair in that instance, it certainly led to some speculation. Now, Steve is facing even more serious allegations, and it's unclear whether he'll respond to them, or simply try to wait out the allegations in the hope that those who are interested just move on to something else.