When Brett Favre was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016, it was the cherry on top of the decades of acclaim he’d earned for his accomplishments as a quarterback.

But the following year, he was trying to stay out of the spotlight. “If you were to pay me,” he asked in a text message to Nancy New of the Mississippi Community Education Center, “is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much?”

The information Favre wanted to keep private involved the appropriation of millions of dollars of welfare funds to Favre himself and various projects he championed — none of which seemed to have much to do with helping people in need.