Conor McGregor has weighed in on Dustin Poirier’s recent airport arrest, offering a stark warning and advice to his former rival ahead of his own UFC return.
Poirier was arrested on Father’s Day after an airport incident in Georgia that initially resulted in a misdemeanor public drunkenness charge. He has since apologized and said he has been dealing with mental health struggles since retiring from the sport.
“Karma is a mirror,” McGregor said while discussing the situation, before stressing how dangerous it can be to brush off such incidents. “It’s not good. It’s not good to see. If I was to say something to him, I would say, take this with absolute seriousness. Do not engage in people. Oh, there’s people, ‘It was funny, I like him more.’ So you start laughing about it. ‘Ah, maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe I’ll keep going.’ Then the next one’s worse, and then you slip deeper and deeper. So, I would say, take this with absolute seriousness.”
McGregor noted that he had recently been asked by Megan Olivi about Poirier’s retirement and post-fighting life before the arrest video surfaced. “Funny enough, I spoke with Megan Olivi, they asked me — not on this, this hadn’t happened yet — but asking me about Dustin,” he said.
“He has to take accountability,” McGregor added, referencing Poirier’s public comments. “I seen something, he came out, his father – he blamed his father. You have to take accountability, my man. That’s it. I’m not gonna go deeper. I don’t want to go into it. It’s not my business, you know, and for the sake of his family and his children, his new child born, I hope he comes right.”
McGregor, a former UFC two-division champion who says he is now sober and focused on a healthier direction, is scheduled to return to action for the first time in five years this weekend against Max Holloway at UFC 329. McGregor and Poirier have fought three times in the Octagon.
