Johnny Manziel opened up for the first time ever about his infamous “Billy Football” disguise that he wore a couple years ago on a secret trip to Las Vegas.
The dual-threat quarterback dipped out to Las Vegas during his roller-coaster ride of a second season with the Cleveland Browns. It didn’t take long for the news to hit that he wore a disguise while hitting the town. The quarterback appeared on the Thomahawk podcast with Joe Thomas and Andrew Hawkins Wednesday, and explained what happened. It’s just as crazy as you’d expect.
Manziel stated the following (transcription from Sporting News):
I missed my flight, I put out an Instagram saying that I’m at home with my dog, and tagged it in Avon, Ohio. So then I’m like, I’m not going to be able to just go in with a hat. Let’s go get a wig. And, as funny as this is, I’m still pretty embarrassed by it. It’s still like a reckless decision, but like we said, let it die. I’m like, ‘Let’s go to this wig shop.’ So I type in Google, nearest wig shop and just go somewhere off the strip. Very very sketchy, I walk into this place and this little lady walks up [and asks], ‘What you want on your hair?’ And I’m like, ‘I need something that makes me not look like this. Do you have a mustache, do you have a wig, do you have anything?’ And she came back with this wig and I put it on, and I’m like, ‘Perfect!’ I shaved off all my facial hair except my mustache.
Here’s what Johnny Manziel looked like when he went in disguise in Vegas during the Browns’ final regular season game in 2016: https://t.co/egbNaTG4jC
(: @Hawk) pic.twitter.com/mSRoFikIlX
— Sporting News (@sportingnews) February 28, 2018
It’s crazy to think about how big of a news story this was at the time. Manziel was flaming out of the NFL, in a terrible downward spiral and then word breaks that he’s tearing up Vegas in a disguise. It was the most stereotypical Johnny Football story we’ve ever heard.
Of course, nobody really knew the truth. It was all second hand reports, and we were left to our imaginations. In situations like that the truth rarely lives up to the hype. Sometimes they’re not even close to being the same.
Well, it turns out Manziel did all of the wig stuff. Just the actions of a legendary quarterback and sports figure. He also said that he arrived back at his Vegas room an hour before he was supposed to on the other side of the country in a meeting with the Browns. It’s truly incredible just how crazy the Manziel saga is, but we’re all about the #ComebackSZN now.