A new report by the New York Times, just days prior to UFC Freedom 250 and a month or so shy of Conor McGregor’s return, has claimed the UFC superstar used banned substances to heal the broken leg he suffered while facing Dustin Poirier for a third time in 2021.
That leg break, shades of Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman, has left McGregor, now 37, on the sidelines for years. Along the way, he “retired” and removed himself from the testing pool; his planned return saw the UFC’s relationship with then-drug testing partner USADA decline rapidly after the two sides butted heads over an exemption from the normally required six months of drug testing for fighters coming back from retirement.
While many in the MMA space believed that McGregor retired and exited USADA’s drug testing pool specifically to utilize medications that would otherwise be banned for active fighters, the NYT report is the first to cite multiple sources confirming it, if they are to be believed. They also claim this was an attempt to “evade” anti-doping officials.
Per the New York Times story, published Thursday, their investigation “reveals that he [Conor McGregor] did take powerful, banned drugs, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.” They also point to Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who oversaw McGregor’s surgery in 2021, as supporting McGregor’s use of substances that would have been banned under the promotion’s Anti-Doping Policy (ADP), at the time overseen by USADA.
ElAttrache supported McGregor receiving a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE), which allowed athletes in the USADA program to use substances that would otherwise be banned from competition, with medical oversight. ElAttrache, who is the head physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Rams, told the Times that he did not “prescribe hormone or steroid treatment,” but rather wrote a letter in support of the TUE, after McGregor had seen another specialist who was also in favor of it.
Ultimately, McGregor’s TUE was denied, and he would go on to retire and remove himself from USADA’s testing pool as a result. During the years that followed, he filmed a role in the Road House remake alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, and was for a time announced as returning to action against Michael Chandler at UFC 303 in 2024, after the pair coached opposite one another via The Ultimate Fighter 31. He later withdrew from the fight due to a broken toe.
Much of the details from the Times report were already publicly known prior to that, and pertain to the period between McGregor’s catastrophic 2021 injury and UFC 303.
Conor McGregor’s potential return to action became a sticking point in the relationship between USADA and the UFC, one that saw their partnership quickly sour, and come to an end however. That started as early as 2022, when McGregor exited USADA’s testing pool. In a statement issued to multiple media outlets, the drug testing org noted that “In October 2022, the UFC confirmed that McGregor is not in the USADA testing pool and we can confirm that report.”
As first reported by Cageside Press in November 2022, a potential McGregor return was out of their hands. While fighters returning from retirement typically receive six months of mandatory drug testing, that period can be waived, as it was in the case of both Brock Lesnar and Meisha Tate. Lesnar, infamously, later failed a drug test linked to his UFC 200 fight against Mark Hunt in 2016, leading to years of legal action between Hunt and the promotion.
“We do not make the decision to grant exemptions to the six-month return from retirement rule,” USADA officials told Cageside Press at the time. Rather, under the UFC’s Anti-Doping Policy and their agreement with the organization, it was the UFC that had final say.
The following March, before he had returned to the testing pool, USADA publicly cried foul about a possible exemption for McGregor. A statement on the situation in part read “While the rules permit the UFC to make an exception to the six-month rule in exceptional circumstances, when the strict application of the rule would be manifestly unfair to the athlete, our position, which we have made clear, is that Conor should be in the testing pool for the full six-month period.”
That led UFC President and CEO Dana White to publicly exclaim “who cares what USADA says,” perhaps the first sign that the relationship between the two bodies would fail.
McGregor did return to the testing pool, but by January 2024, the relationship between the UFC and USADA was kaput. Following a very public breakup, the promotion engaged Combat Sports Anti-Doping (CSAD) and Drug Free Sport to oversee their Anti-Doping Program.
At the time, USADA CEO Travis T. Tygart called the relationship between the two bodies “untenable.” A press release by USADA directly linked this to the McGregor situation. The UFC later issued a legal letter to USADA in response.
In response to the New York Times, Conor McGregor’s manager, Audie Attar, did not confirm whether the fighter took banned substances while officially retired. “Even with surgery there was a real risk Conor might not walk again, a high likelihood he would face numerous lifelong side effects that would limit his mobility and serious doubts he would ever return to the octagon,” he was quoted as saying, adding that his client exited the testing pool “to focus fully on his recovery,” under the guidance of his medical team.
“It is an unfathomable breach of health and privacy protections that my client’s purported personal medical records would be disclosed,” Attar noted.
UFC Chief Business Officer Hunter Campbell told the Times that McGregor remained “in full compliance with the rules of our comprehensive drug program.”
According to the Times, ElAttrache, the doctor who oversaw McGregor’s 2021 surgery, said the “expert opinions” McGregor received from other physicians had showed “he could optimize his chance of solid union and healing of his fractures and decrease the chances that he would be left with incompletely healed fracture lines.” ElAttrache also noted that “banned drugs” are not the same as “illegal drugs,” and substances banned from competition often have legitimate medical purposes.
However, the Times cited “ten sports doctors” saying they were unaware of any athlete being granted a Therapeutic Use Exemption for substances to heal a broken bone. Only one was named in Thursday’s report, Dr. David Gerrard.
“I could not recall ever seeing a case or agreeing to any performance-enhancing drug to help heal a broken bone,” he said in regards to McGregor’s case.
According to the Times, McGregor did use banned substances while not under purview of USADA (or later, CSAD), citing unnamed sources. However, the fighter has never failed a drug test while in the testing program, and remains the UFC’s most actively tested fighter, with 12 drug test samples collected in 2026.
He previously received an 18-month suspension for whereabouts failures (not keeping CSAD up to date on his location to facilitate sample collection).
Conor McGregor returns to action in the main event of UFC 329 on July 11, 2026, where he faces Max Holloway for the second time.
