Senior point guard Peyton Siva paced the Cardinals last night like he has all season. To go with a Big East Tournament MVP, a lovable father, and a National Championship, he can add this: he had his spot blown up by a "Twitter model" whose whole game seems to be putting athletes and rappers on blast to make herself relevant. These are the perils of fame.
Jenna Shea is self-described model/showgirl/camgirl, but that's probably not all. Last year she sat courtside for a Rockets game. She waited all of hours to announce to her million-plus Twitter followers that James Harden had flown her in from Los Angeles to "hang out." She claimed she received $20,000 for the night, and just in case you didn't believe her, posted a photo of a giant pile of cash.
Peyton Siva probably wishes he had known Shea's MO before he started flirting with her. Last night, about an hour after Louisville lifted the trophy, she took to Twitter. Claiming she was upset that Siva thanked his girlfriend, Shea proceeded to dump four screenshots of their text message log.
(The messages aren't dated, though they took place sometime in the past week. Wonderfully, Siva is wearing his Kevin Ware tribute shirt in two of the photos.)
Trying to hook up is not a crime, not even if you already have a girlfriend. Siva's likely grasped this during four years of a stardom local enough to keep his business his own, but in one night he learned a valuable lesson. Win a national championship, and you're big enough that someone out there will want to blow up your spot.
It's obviously not about the girlfriend, as Shea later admitted:
But it's not about the money either. You could call what she does extortion, if she didn't call out her conquests even after they pay her. Look at James Harden, or Lil Wayne, or Fabolous, or Yung Berg.
Social media has given rise to a whole generation of Twitter groupies, like Shea or Candy Deepthroat, whose public shaming list includes Matt Barnes, Ronny Turiaf, and Lance Stephenson. The game's been established long enough that young athletes should know what they're getting into by now. In case not, Peyton Siva's here with your PSA: Kids, don't fuck around with Twitter models. They don't like you for you.