A New Big Ben Exposure Story: “He Had A Gray Penis"

Plenty of ladies these days have a story about unwanted exposure to Ben Roethlisberger's penis. Here's an account we received from reader Running Man Territory Dan. It's unverified and possibly totally fabricated. Still, A GRAY PENIS?!

Back in 2004, my then girlfriend (now wife) lived with her best friend. Her best friend was a bartender at a high end restaurant located in the Mt. Washington area of Pittsburgh and it was not uncommon to see multiple Steelers dining there each weekend. This best friend and her colleagues from the restaurant hung out with us a lot on the weekends. One night, my wife's friend and her bartender colleague met up with us at a bar. We were all sitting around and my wife's friend said to her colleague that she had to tell us what had happened earlier that week. Here's her tale — we'll call her Mandy:

Mandy and her friends are at a bar in the Strip District area of Pittsburgh dancing and drinking. Ben (and little Ben) arrive at the bar and over the course of the evening, Ben takes an interest in Mandy and approaches her. I believe he recognized her from the restaurant, but at any rate, they have some drinks and dance.

He invites her and her friend back to his place. They head back to Ben's house along with a couple friends/bodyguards of his. Mandy's friend takes up with a bodyguard/friend of Ben's downstairs and Mandy heads upstairs with Ben.

He shows her around the house a bit upstairs and then they head to his room. They made out a little but mostly were talking. At this point, she said she had pretty much decided nothing was going to happen because he was pretty drunk and really arrogant. At this point, Ben gets a call on his cell and heads to the bathroom. She looks around his room and sees in his closet he has dozens of football jerseys. She notices one in particular that's autographed all over.

In a moment of questionable decision-making, she nabs the jersey and throws it out the window of the bedroom intending to grab it on her way out. She is walking to the door of the bedroom to go find her friend when Ben emerges from the bathroom naked as the day he was born and at full attention.

She said she was shocked, certainly by the full nude approach, but also because he had a gray penis (this is the part of the story we've laughed at most over the years - such a bizarre detail. We asked so many times what she meant by "gray" and she just said it was gray and almost looked ashy. Amazing). She sort of laughed a little and said she had to leave.

He cursed her out at this point, calling her a tease (the worst crime in Ben's world, apparently) and telling her to get the fuck out. She ran downstairs, collected her friend and away they went... but not before collecting the jersey. They had no ride so they hoofed it until they were able to get a cab to meet them somewhere further along.

Next morning, she wakes up with a great story and this jersey. She also wakes up with several voicemails. Turns out Mandy's friend had made a connection with Ben's bodyguard/friend and given him her cell.

Mandy's friend had left several VMs for Mandy because the bodyguard had contacted the friend saying in no uncertain terms that Ben needed that jersey back. There would be no problems so long as the jersey was returned. Turns out the jersey was a QB competition jersey signed by a bunch of Hall of Famers like Steve Young/Elway/Marino etc and was extra special to young Ben.

Mandy was already regretting the theft and was worried about her job considering Ben knew where she worked. She gave the jersey to her friend who made arrangements to get it to the bodyguard. The jersey was returned and no more was every made of the incident.

As to the veracity of the tale, there are some relevant points to be made. First, this girl was pretty attractive, so it was not beyond her to have ended up with Ben. Second, she was a pretty decent person and not someone prone to exaggeration. In fact, the biggest doubt any of us had about the story at first was that Mandy would've been involved because she was not the type to chase a football player, let alone go home with him. Any doubts I had were erased by the bizarre nature of the details she provided. And as I said, she told this story, often begrudgingly, many many times and the details never wavered. There was actually a period at the beginning where she wouldn't tell the story and demanded secrecy from those of us that knew because she was so spooked about the jersey aspect even after returning it. She was sure Ben was gonna get her fired or something.

Anyhow, that's the tale. Do with it what you will and believe it or not, but it happened and the legend of the gray penis will live on. Here's hoping he got some special lotion or something before he started attacking girls with it.

So there you go. A gray penis. Then there's this series of tweets from a Chicago woman named Amy Radostits:

Is #Roethlisberger #guilty? No doubt in my mind. I had to sneak out the back door of a bar to escape from the chach back in college. #Shady

@witenike Unfortunately. I only ran into him twice and had to put him in his place both times. Big Ben is a big creep.

@witenike Example: I was on my phone. Ben came up behind me, took it out of my hand, put it in his front pocket and told me to come get it.

Dammit! Why didn't I think of that move? It sounds like it would totally work! She goes on:

@witenike The scary thing is, he doesn't take "no" for an answer. He was already w/ the Steelers when I met him. Didn't take rejection well.

@witenike It gets better. He then went through my phone to see if I was talking to a guy & told me I had to "give him a hug to get it back."

And then in reply to someone who calls Roethlisberger a "sick bleep," she tweets:

@BBaranowski He really is. Maybe I will inform Deadspin. I'm sure there are a 1,000 women out there w/ similar encounters. He'll get his.