Katherine Webb: Commentator made me famous … and I hated it

Katherine Webb became a household face after she had the spotlight turned on her in the crowd at a football game — and she hated it.

She turned a viral moment at a football game into a modelling and TV career, but Katherine Webb says giving it all up to start a family was the best decision she ever made.

Webb was just 23 when she was featured on an ESPN broadcast of the college championship game watching her then boyfriend and Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron lead his team to a 42-14 win against Notre Dame.

Viewers complained that veteran commentator Brent Musburger — who was 73 at the time — was being creepy and objectifying the former Miss Alabama.

“Now when you’re a quarterback at Alabama — you see that lovely lady there? She’s Miss Alabama and that’s AJ McCarron’s girlfriend,” Musberger said.

“Wow, I’m telling you, you quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman! Whoa.

“If you’re a youngster at Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with Pop.”

While Musburger said he didn’t feel like he had done anything wrong, his employer, ESPN, apologised for his comments, saying he “went too far.”

Webb didn’t mind though, telling the New York Post “he just said some nice things about me … (and) didn’t need to apologise” and leveraged the spotlight into a spot in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition and appearances in commercials and reality TV shows.

Katherine Webb. (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)

Katherine Webb 'hated being famous'.

“I did ‘Splash’ with a bunch of other random celebs,” Webb recalled of the now-defunct ABC diving competition series.

Webb was also Inside Edition’s Super Bowl correspondent in 2013, but was unable to “do my job as well as I thought because I was hounded then!”

Following a whirlwind year, she was ready to settle down with McCarron in 2014, embracing their next chapter together as husband and wife.

“I quit ‘Hollywood’ shortly after bc I realised I genuinely hated being ‘famous’ and having my personal life out there so much,” Webb posted to her Instagram story.

“I gave it all up to marry my forever love and have my boys and I would do it all again in a heartbeat,” she penned. “The end.”

Webb welcomed two children, sons Tripp, 3, and Cash, 1, with McCarron — who previously played for the Bengals, Bills, and Raiders but is now the back-up with the Texans.

Katherine Webb attends a Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

— with New York Post