‘Barstool Sports’ Fires Contributor Who Made Fun Of Recently Murdered College Student Mackenzie Lueck

Mackenzie Lueck was a 23-year-old nursing student at the University of Utah with high hopes for the future. Her life was tragically cut short. Lueck was declared missing on June 17. She had called for a Lyft ride to pick her up from the airport and transport her to a nearby park. She was never seen again.

Police recently announced the heartbreaking news that Lueck is deceased. As her family begins to deal with this unimaginable loss, there have been some who have made light of the situation. A contributor was recently fired from the blog Barstool Sports for poking fun at Lueck, according to The Wrap.

Barstool Sports is a controversial sports and pop culture blog that was founded by Dave Portnoy. Francis Ellis was previously a contributor for the publication. Prior to the announcement that the college student was no longer considered missing, but was in fact deceased, he wrote a blog post making fun of her and her online activity.

Lueck was reportedly a sugar baby who proudly spoke about having two sugar daddies. A sugar baby is essentially someone who provides sexual favors or merely companionship with a wealthy older man in exchange for money of lavish gifts. Lueck was in a private sugar baby Facebook group in which she provided other girls instructions as to how to get their own sugar daddy, according to Inside Edition.

This information was crucial to the case because law enforcement believed it could have something to do with her disappearance. However, Ellis spoke about Lueck’s sugar baby status in a callous light that gained Barstool Sports,as a whole, a lot of criticism. In addition, he looked up Lueck online and poked fun at her low follower count on her Instagram account.

“This must be her finsta, because 222 followers is pretty week for anyone in a sorority,” he said.

Dave Portnoy took to Twitter on Friday to reveal the news that he had fired Ellis for his distasteful comments.

“This is very real, I just had to fire Francis,” he begins the video, getting right to the point. He then explained that Ellis actually put up the controversial post before he was even aware that it existed.

In the meantime, Ellis has apologized for his comments in a public statement.

“I simply should not have written about the story. It was a horrific mistake and I am deeply sorry to the Lueck family for their unfathomable loss. I cannot imagine what they’re going through. The last thing they need is some fool on the internet offering thoughts on their ordeal.”