Three radio hosts fired Monday after bit mocking Steve Gleason



(CNN) -- If he had been listening from his car Monday morning, radio veteran Steak Shapiro knew what he would have thought of a bit mocking a former New Orleans Saint now battling Lou Gehrig's disease.

"I would have been offended."

Why? The now former host of "Mayhem in the AM" on Atlanta's 790 The Zone offered up plenty of reasons in an interview Tuesday with CNN's Brooke Baldwin. And none of his descriptions of the now infamous two-minute radio bit were positive.

Stupid. Not thought out. Offensive. Awful. And not funny.

"You walk a fine line trying to be somewhat on the edge," Shapiro said. "We blew it. We blew it in a huge way."

Shapiro and the show's two other hosts -- Chris Dimino and Nick Cellini -- were fired Monday evening.

It all started, he explained, as the show's crew batted around ideas during a commercial break. The Atlanta Falcons are big in Georgia, and the New Orleans Saints are likely their biggest rivals. And it just so happened that Gleason, one of the men most associated with the Louisiana team, had been the guest writer for Peter King's popular "Monday Morning Quarterback" column this week on SI.com.

But Gleason isn't just any Saint. He's a hero in New Orleans not just for his play as a defensive back but, more recently, for his battle against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neuromuscular disease also known by its acronym ALS and as Lou Gehrig's disease.

The illness has hindered many of Gleason's functions, but it hasn't stopped him. To put together the column, he pointed out, he used technology that allowed him to type with his eyes. Gleason also explained his struggles with, and triumphs over, the disease.

"ALS prevents your brain from talking to your muscles. As a result, muscles die. As a result, every 90 minutes people die," he wrote. "I am a person."

The "Mayhem in the AM" crew decided to spoof Gleason's illness, specifically, the fact he speaks with a synthetic voice. The segment featured punchlines of an imaginary Gleason telling knock-knock jokes, using a would-be synthesizer, with punchlines like "Smother me, do me a favor."

On Tuesday, Shapiro offered no defense for the segment, which he described as quickly conceived and ill-advised. At the outset, he realized the bit wasn't funny but wasn't prepared as it quickly got slammed on social media and beyond.

"The pressure is to try to do a good radio show, and that wasn't a good moment," Shapiro recalled. "It was a horrible moment."

Within hours, the radio station and its parent company had suspended Cellini, Dimino and Shapiro. By day's end, they were all out of a job.

"790 The Zone, our owners, sponsors and partners in no way endorse or support this kind of content. We sincerely apologize to Mr. Gleason, his family and all those touched by ALS," Rick Mack, the station's general manager, said in a statement

All three hosts have apologized on Twitter and personally to the Team Gleason foundation, as Gleason himself wrote on Facebook.

"Received and accepted," he wrote. "We have all made mistakes in this life. How we learn from our mistakes is the measure of who we are."

Since the story broke, Gleason said, there's been a lot of talk about ALS, an ailment he characterizes as being "not (well) understood ... and largely ignored." Hopefully, this unintentional uproar will help change that, he said.

That's Shapiro's hope as well. At the same time, he's personally shaken for his part in offending so many -- including Gleason, those fighting ALS and the city of New Orleans. The 18-year radio veteran knows New Orleans well: he attended Tulane University, was married in the city and even has a daughter named Nola.

"It's a place I understand their passions and their heroes," Shapiro said, counting Gleason as one such hero. "And to make fun of those, it's an awful thing. I feel awful about it."