Mackenzie Shirilla’s Dad Speaks Out After Teaching Contract Not Renewed

**Tony** (0:08)
Hey, everybody, welcome to The TMZ Podcast. My name is Tony, filling in for Branson today, and I am joined by Alexa, one of our news producers here at TMZ, working hard on stories every single day, bringing us the news we gotta know.

**Alexa** (0:23)
Wow, what an intro. I'm happy to be there.

**Tony** (0:25)
How's it going?

**Alexa** (0:26)
Here, oh my gosh, it's been a long day, but it's-

**Tony** (0:29)
It's been a long week so far.

**Alexa** (0:30)
Yeah, I can't believe it's only Wednesday, but here we are.

**Tony** (0:32)
But we're here, and we got some updates in, I think, I would say the most popular documentary, popular piece of media, The Crash. We have an update today, Mackenzie Shirilla's dad, his teaching contract is not getting renewed, and that connects to the documentary because there was a lot of backlash of what he said in the documentary.

**Alexa** (0:56)
For sure. He was an art teacher at a middle school out in Cleveland, Ohio, where they're from. They're from Strongsville, Ohio.
He was suspended shortly after the Crash documentary came out on Netflix. It's been speculated that it's all because of his take. We actually did confirm with the spokesperson that it does have to do with parents concerned that he doesn't have a sound of mind point of view, and not the best interest in things.

**Tony** (1:26)
We got a statement from Steve and the school, correct? And so Steve said, we spoke to him earlier today, and he said, I wouldn't re-sign a contract with them for the simple fact of how they handle this situation. The school and the, please forgive me.

**Alexa** (1:42)
Diocese.

**Tony** (1:42)
Diocese showed their true colors. He said, I'm done talking about this or anything that's not about the injustice my daughter has been put through. My only focus is her. Which is crazy. Yeah, that's, I mean, so he said in the documentary, something about her using marijuana, right? And that was the backlash for it.
So for people who haven't seen The Doc, like myself, or only know the major plot points, what was the backlash from that?

**Alexa** (2:14)
Definitely. So the biggest thing, Mackenzie Shirilla, she was the girl that is currently facing two life sentences for murdering her boyfriend, Dominic, and her friend, Davion, after she ran her car into a wall at almost like 100 miles an hour, killing them both. And in the documentary, it covered her story and Davion and Dominic's story. And they ask Steve, her dad, Steve Shirilla, she's been seen smoking marijuana, driving while smoking. And Steve, in the documentary, he's like, well, I don't care if I smoke, I don't care if you smoke. I don't know, I don't think marijuana is that big of a deal.

**Tony** (2:49)
I was giving like a nonchalant, like, oh, I'm not really...

**Alexa** (2:53)
For sure.

**Tony** (2:54)
Yeah, like...

**Alexa** (2:54)
Her parents were not painted in the best light in this documentary.

**Tony** (2:57)
I've been hearing a lot of backlash that this documentary left out a lot of stuff.

**Alexa** (3:02)
Yeah.

**Tony** (3:03)
So you've seen the doc.

**Alexa** (3:05)
Oh, yes.

**Tony** (3:05)
So what is your take on it? Do you think, how does it portray, you know, the victims? What is just your overall take on it?

**Alexa** (3:13)
Yeah, I definitely do think they left out a lot because, I mean, we have like the full, you know, records of this. It happened back in 2022, but we have all of the audio from her, like jail talks with her mom and her friends and all the body cam footage. Like you can only put so much in a documentary, of course, but they definitely did leave out a lot of color. I think they did their purpose, which I think was to make Mackenzie look irresponsible and to make her parents look neglectful.
So that was definitely, they hit the nail on the head with that one.

**Tony** (3:45)
So we've been getting a lot of audio leaks from Mackenzie Shirilla behind bars, and she's talking with her parents, talking with her mom, just about life in jail, about everything. What is your take on those? Because she's been getting into a lot of trouble, including allegedly video, sexual video calls with men, and just what's your take on that?

**Alexa** (4:08)
Yeah, there's so much. I mean, most of the phone calls seem to be about her hating it in there. She's talking to her mom, she's like, I'm bored, I have to read the same books over and over again. There's one where she does bring up Davion and Dominic, and she's complaining about the music that she had to pay for this subscription, and that they had horrible artists on there, and they sounded like the Davion and Doms of the world. Kind of like, I don't know, crapping on their music. I guess they might have been SoundCloud rappers.