The company that now owns the Proper No. Twelve Irish whiskey that mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor co-founded, said it would no longer be using his name and image for their branding.
On Friday, a jury in a High Court civil case found that Mr McGregor had raped Dublin woman Nikita Hand in a hotel in the city in December 2018.
She was awarded nearly €250,000 in damages.
“Since 2021, Proximo Spirits has been the 100% owner of Proper No. Twelve Irish Whiskey,” Proximo Spirits said in a statement.
“Going forward, we do not plan to use Mr McGregor’s name and likeness in the marketing of the brand.”
Proximo acquired the whiskey from Mr McGregor and his business partners in 2021.
Right up to today, the brand had continued to use Conor McGregor’s image and his name to promote it, including on its website.
However, this evening the whiskey’s official website appears to have been taken down.
Earlier, a number of supermarket and convenience store chains said they are no longer stocking products linked to the fighter following the judgement.
Musgrave confirmed in a statement that “these products are no longer available to our store network”.
Musgrave operates the Supervalu, Centra, Daybreak brands around the country and Mace in Northern Ireland.
In addition to his whiskey promotion, McGregor had recently ventured into the brewing industry with his Forged Irish Stout.
Tesco also confirmed that it had stopped stocking products linked to Mr McGregor.
In a statement, the supermarket, which has 177 stores in the state, said: “We can confirm that we are removing Proper No 12 from sale in Tesco stores and online.
“Tesco does not stock Forged Irish Stout.”
BWG Foods also said it was no longer listing for distribution Conor McGregor linked products across its network of over 1,000 Spar, Eurospar, Mace, Londis and XL Stores across Ireland.
While the Cork based Barry Group, which has the Costcutter and Carry Out retail outlets, said it had also made the decision to delist Forged Stout and Proper No Twelve from its network.
“This action reflects our commitment to maintaining a retail environment that resonates with the values of our customers and partners,” it said.
Dublin and Cork airports operator, daa, also confirmed that Proper No Twelve whiskey was removed from sale in the Duty Free of both airports over the weekend.
“We can confirm that none of the bars in Dublin or Cork airports sell either “Proper No 12” or “Forged Irish Stout”, it added.
Yesterday, the game developer IO Interactive, which makes a video game called Hitman with which Mr McGregor is associated, said it had taken the decision to cease the collaboration.
“In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately,” it said in a post on social media site X.
“We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications. Consequently, we will begin removing all content featuring Mr. McGregor from our storefronts starting today.”