Yes, Colts Owner Jim Irsay Really Made an Extremely Random American Primeval Cameo

THERE’S KIND OF an art to the random celebrity television cameo. Sometimes, they totally work: Prince on New Girl? Great. Robin Williams and Billy Crystal on Friends? Fantastic. Bradley Cooper put in a couple great minutes on Abbott Elementary. Hell, Larry David popped into an episode of Hannah Montana out of nowhere for the most Larry David minute or so you’ll ever see.

But then there are the truly random cameos that make you kind of just go “Huh?” That category includes Ed Sheeran singing a little song on Game of Thrones. It includes former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg showing up for a strange second on Gossip Girl. It includes John McCain delivering a file and not speaking on 24. And, now, it includes the owner of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, Jim Irsay, being treated for an injury and/or bathing on American Primeval.

Why, you might wonder, is the owner of an NFL franchise, showing up in Netflix’s expansive and brutally violent 1857-set Western limited series? It’s a great question. It’s one we ourselves are also wondering, in fact.

Oddly, Irsay is not the only NFL franchise owner to make a recent cameo on a hit TV series: Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones recently appeared as himself in an episode of Landman (alongside Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Hamm!). But while Jones’s performance somehow miraculously earned widespread acclaim and praise on social media and elsewhere (Vulture said, somewhat jokingly but also somewhat sincerely, that that the monologue the 82-year-old Jones delivered “by all rights should get him a Guest Actor Emmy nomination come this summer.”), Irsay’s brief foray into Netflix’s Western (a show that includes depictions of real-life figures like Jim Bridger and Brigham Young) hasn’t earned him the same kind of praise.

But, nonetheless, the cameo did happen. And we continue to not know why.

Stream American Primeval Here

Is Jim Irsay really in American Primeval? And if so, why?

Yes, Colts owner Jim Irsay really is in the first episode of American Primeval.

Not long after the series debuted, fans noticed his seemingly-random appearance as a guy sipping whiskey, getting bathed, and calling out Two Moons (Shawnee Pourier) for stealing a knife. Iray is credited as “James Stephen Irsay,” and his character’s official name is “Bathing Mountain Man.”

Irsay himself actually posted from the set of American Primeval back in April 2023, with Colts employee Tex Randall.

While we don’t know why or how, exactly, Irsay ended up in American Primeval, it’s also not the first time he’s dabbled in entertainment or made a cameo. He famously appeared in both 1996’s beloved romcom Jerry Maguire and two episodes of the hit sitcom Parks & Recreation as himself; clearly he has some interest in film and television.

And you know what? If you had a net worth of 4.8 billion dollars and wanted to make a cameo here and there, you’d probably do what you could to make it happen too.