Remember when Jesse Watters said he deflated the tires of a woman so he could give her a ride home and, presumably, hit on her – even though he was married at the time? On Monday, Watters claimed he had been joking and cohost Greg Gutfeld falsely claimed that had been edited out of the video that went viral. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

In case you missed it, here’s what Watters said on The Five, on April 11, 2022:

WATTERS: When I was trying to get Emma to date me, first thing I did – I let the air out of her tires. She couldn’t go anywhere. She needed a lift, I said, “Hey, you need a lift?” She hopped right into the car.

[…]

She doesn’t know this story. Now she does.

[…]

It has a happy ending.

As I noted in my post, Watters “forgot” to mention he was already married at the time.

But after what Watters called “Deflategate” went viral, he told The Five on April 25, 2022 that it was all just a joke.

WATTERS: [T]hat was a joke. … I never deflated anyone's tires.

GUTFELD: You even said it was a joke but they didn't clip -- they didn’t clip it, did they?

WATTERS: No.

GUTFELD: You did say it was a joke.

FACT CHECK: Watters never said it was a joke. Juliet Jeske, whose tweet of that clip, under the handle @DecodingFoxNews, went viral, shows in the video below that she did not edit anything out of the clip. I thought it was possible Watters clarified elsewhere in the show so I checked the full transcript – and he didn’t. If you don’t have direct access to the transcript, you can view it via your public library’s website if they subscribe to the Gale OneFile News database (once in that database, search for and select the “Newsstand” sub-database).

Assuming Watters is now telling the truth, hats off to reader Rw Fan who commented on my original post that the story was BS and would likely be walked back.

You can see that in the original April 11 discussion Watters never said he was joking, even after Gutfeld asked, “Did you really do that?” below. It’s included and right after the clip in which Watters now says he was joking, from the April 25, 2022 The Five, via DecodingFoxNews.