Matthew Lloyd was living off the old Mark Twain quote of ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’, that was until he was ultimately caught out.
The AFL legend and former Essendon sharpshooter was exposed on Sunday morning over an infamous tale he’d told his peers.
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Veteran journalist Damien Barrett was the man to shine the spotlight on Lloyd and his rather terrifying run-in with a lion.
“Two weeks ago on this show, Nathan Brown told us an extraordinary story of a scuffle with a quokka. And then last week, the man who sits to his right wanted to one-up him and told an even more extraordinary story,” Barrett says as clips of Lloyd’s story are shown.
Lloyd begins: “We took the best 30 boys in the country to South Africa and there were some lion cubs with the mother lion.
“I squat down next to a cub, next minute I’m feeling 120 kgs on my back. I thought it was somebody playing a joke, but it was the mother on my back.
“I’ve given it an elbow, then it’s squeezing the life out of my stomach so I’m pulling the paws. Next minute I go to lunge forward and it’s ripped my singlet off my back, scratches all down my back.
“I fought the lion and I live here to tell the tale so how brave am I.”
The Sunday Footy Show panel couldn’t believe what they’d heard from the goalkicking superstar.
But Barrett was set on getting the record straight and with one simple photo, Lloyd’s bravery and his embellishment on the incident was exposed.
“It’s amazing he’s alive, it’s dramatic stuff, it’s harrowing,” Barrett says building him up before tearing him down.
“I can’t imagine what it was like psychologically.
“It’s extraordinary, we’ve got a 120kg beast on his back, he’s had claws and paws and he was being suffocated.
“Now I need to give a warning, we have now got vision of this … it’s still shot vision and if you are squeamish you need to look away.
“This is the genuine photo taken moments after the mauling.”
As the photo of Lloyd is displayed on the screen, the entire panel are left reeling as Lloyd is displayed with one tiny mark on his back with his singlet still perfectly intact.
“Is that it?” Nathan Brown shouts. “That’s a pimple … it’s a boil.”
Tony Jones adds: “Wait, where is it? You rubbed up against a bush.”
As laughter breaks out, Lloyd is put on the spot to explain himself and why he’s barely got a mark on him despite his grandious storytelling of the alleged incident.
“Well who doesn’t embellish a story,” he says.
Despite the photo clearly exposing Lloyd’s story, the Essendon great attempted to double down as those around him attempted to curtail their laughter.
“It did happen, it did happen,” he says before officially apologising for blowing the story out of proportion.