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David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
Former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski made an extremely bizarre admission about Aaron Hernandez, the infamous late NFL tight end who was convicted of murder before taking his life. Gronk and Hernandez were teammates on the Patriots from 2010 to 2012.
While appearing on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast, which recently departed from Barstool Sports, the future Hall of Fame tight end was asked about Aaron Hernandez and launched into an extremely bizarre anecdote about Hernandez pleasuring himself.
According to Gronk, Hernandez would sometimes pleasure himself during team meetings. Given what we know about how troubled and disturbed Hernandez was, that isn’t necessarily surprising.
What’s shocking is Gronk’s admitted reaction to it, as he said he encouraged Hernandez to do it because he thought it was “pretty epic.”
“I love crazy s—. I didn’t mind things like that,” Gronk said of Hernandez choking the chicken in a room full of his teammates and coaches. “I was like that was pretty epic. I was a wild man myself. Nothing fazed me. I encouraged it.”
Hernandez was arrested and charged with the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2012 and was found guilty of first-degree murder two years later. Hernandez was sentenced to life in prison without the possiblity of parole.
While on trial for Lloyd’s murder, Hernandez was charged with the double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, although he was ultimately acquitted. Five days after his acquittal, however, he was found dead in his cell via suicide.
After his death, studies on Hernandez’s brain revealed he had “stage 3 or 4” CTE, leading to speculation about how the degenerative brain disease affected his behavior.
Hernandez has resurfaced in pop culture in recent years, as he was the subject of the 2020 Netflix documentary Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez, and the subject of the FX anthology series American Sports Story last year (which featured laughable portrayals of former Patriots, including Gronk).