A Nashville television sports anchor has apparently lost his job because he mixed Prince lyrics into a recent broadcast.
WZTV Fox-17 sports anchor Dan Phillips used a Prince-themed sports report on April 21.
When contacted by The Tennessean, he would not confirm that was why he was fired from the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned station.
However, Phillips posted on his Facebook page that was the reason he was let go.
{"author_name":"Dan","author_url":"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano","provider_url":"https://www.facebook.com","provider_name":"Facebook","success":true,"height":281,"html":"&#lt;div id=\"fb-root\"&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;\n&#lt;script&#gt;(function(d, s, id) {\n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n js.src = \"//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3\";\n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));&#lt;/script&#gt;&#lt;div class=\"fb-video\" data-href=\"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano/videos/10153532680425592/\"&#gt;&#lt;div class=\"fb-xfbml-parse-ignore\"&#gt;&#lt;blockquote cite=\"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano/videos/10153532680425592/\"&#gt;&#lt;a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano/videos/10153532680425592/\"&#gt;Dearly Beloved...&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;p&#gt;A little tribute to my favorite musical artist. Enjoy. Or just laugh at the idiot making as many Prince references as he can in four minutes.&#lt;/p&#gt;Posted by &#lt;a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano\"&#gt;Dan Phillips&#lt;/a&#gt; on Thursday, April 21, 2016&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;","type":"video","version":"1.0","url":"https://www.facebook.com/spartandano/videos/10153532680425592/","width":500}
"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.
I'm choosing to use this as a catalyst for some exciting things I've been working on for some time now. I'll have many more details on this in coming days.
For now, thanks again for all of your support. And if you need an old, washed-up sports guy for anything, please let me know!"
WZTV Fox-17 news director Bryan McGuder has not returned calls from a Tennessean reporter.
