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Purple Shame: Nashville sports announcer allegedly fired for on-air Prince tribute

There have been a lot of tributes to Prince since the iconic musician’s death in April 21. One from Dan Phillips allegedly cost him his job.

Phillips, a television sportscaster at WZTV Fox 17 in Nashville, delivered a Prince-themed segment last Thursday night, just hours after Prince’s death spread through the media. The 10-year veteran peppered his recap of sports highlights with Prince lyrics, and as you can see in the video below, they were all pretty cheeky and harmless. It was a sincere tribute.

But Phillips has posted on his Facebook page that the routine cost him his job.

He writes: “First of all, I want to thank everyone for the kind words, comments and positive feedback on this tribute I did to Prince last week. It really means a lot. Unfortunately, there were apparently some viewers, as well as management at the station, who did not feel the same way. They felt I was insensitive. And as a result, I was terminated today.”

Support for Phillips on his page has been overwhelmingly positive. [h/t Deadspin]