Cowboys rookie receiver Dez Bryant has denied that a question from Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland in a predraft interview asking if his mother was a prostitute was prompted by something Bryant said.
"No, I didn't tell him my dad was a pimp," Bryant said in a text message to ESPN's Ed Werder on Thursday.
A league source told ESPN.com's Matt Mosley details of the conversation first reported by SI.com earlier Friday were accurate. During the meeting, the source said, Ireland asked Bryant -- during a talk about Bryant's upbringing and relationship with family members --- what his father did for a living when Bryant was growing up, which apparently prompted this exchange:
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Bryant: "My dad was a pimp."
Ireland: "What did your mom do [for a living]?"
Bryant: "She worked for my dad."
Ireland: "Your mom was a prostitute?"
Bryant: "No, she wasn't a prostitute."
Following the Cowboys' first rookie minicamp Friday, Bryant was asked about the conversation in the SI.com story.
"No, that's a lie," he said to reporters. "I really don't want to speak on that."
Ireland apologized to Bryant on Tuesday for asking whether his mother was a prostitute in an interview during the former Oklahoma State player's trip to the Dolphins in March.
"My job is to find out as much information as possible about a player that I'm considering drafting. Sometimes that leads to asking in-depth questions," Ireland said Tuesday in a statement released by the Dolphins. "Having said that, I talked to Dez Bryant and told him I used poor judgment in one of the questions I asked him. I certainly meant no disrespect and apologized to him."
Ireland received permission from the Cowboys' front office Tuesday to speak with Bryant, the 24th pick of the first round.
Yahoo! Sports first reported that during one of his predraft visits, Bryant was asked by a high-level executive of one NFL franchise -- during an extensive conversation about Bryant's past -- whether his mother, Angela, was a prostitute.
"No, my mom is not a prostitute," Bryant told Yahoo! Sports. "I got mad -- really mad -- but I didn't show it. I got a lot of questions like that: Does she still do drugs? I sat and answered all of them."
The backgrounds of Bryant and his mother were widely reported prior to the draft. Angela was only 15 when Dez was born, and she served time in jail for selling crack cocaine.