The pressures and excitement of game day can bring out all the emotions, as Thursday Night Football reporter Charissa Thompson was reminded before the Denver Broncos took on the Seattle Seahawks on October 15.
The Prime Video broadcast caught Broncos head coach Sean Payton giving Thompson, 44, a kiss on the cheek after a pregame interview before the Broncos’ thrilling 17-14 overtime win — an awkward interaction that set the internet ablaze.
But it was only a kiss, so how did it end up like this? Well, for context, Payton, 62, and Thompson are former colleagues, with the Broncos coach working alongside her at Fox in 2022 before he took the Denver job the following season. The moment was strangae, for sure, but didn’t seem like a big deal to either party.
“That Sean Payton/Charissa Thompson kiss looked weird, but they were colleagues at one point. Still, it seems weird,” one fan wrote via X.
“Sean Payton kissing Charissa Thompson definitely wasn’t supposed to be caught on camera. Super weird,” another added.
Some fans even called for Payton’s job or speculated there is something more than a collegial friendship between the two.
One fan viewed it as “Sean Payton shooting his shot,” while another asked, “Sean Payton and Charissa Thompson a thing?”
For the record, Thompson has been dating her boyfriend, Steve Cundari, since 2022. Payton has been married to his wife, Skylene Montgomery, since 2021.
Thompson, for her part, is typically candid about her on-air adventures — and misadventures. In 2023, she was forced to clarify a comment she made on a podcast that implied she would fabricate reports from coaches early in her career. She explained that she meant to say that she would improvise if a coach blew her off at halftime, but never falsely attribute something to them.
“For example, if a team was 0-for-7 on 3rd down, that would clearly be an area they need to improve on in the second half,” she said in a social media statement. “In these instances, I never attributed anything I said to a player or coach.”
In 2025, she took to her “Calm Down with Erin and Charissa” podcast to go into graphic detail about how a seafood tower almost derailed a Thursday Night Football broadcast.
“Two weeks ago, I got sick before the game, I was sick in the morning at a production meeting,” she explained to cohost Erin Andrews. “Came out of nowhere. We might have pinpointed it to the seafood tower from the night before, but either way, it hit me during the production meeting.”
Thompson continued, “By the time the game rolled around, I was lights, camera, action, bitch smile, no problem.“I didn’t have any issues on air. I didn’t even bring it up to my boss. It wasn’t even worth bringing up to my bosses because I was fine.”
