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Former ESPN colleagues Sage Steele and Stephen A. Smith reunited on the former’s podcast earlier this week, and they relived a memory when Steele made a major move that risked his tenure at the network, which was already in jeopardy.
Steele explained that she was not included in an ESPN special during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and that her former Black colleagues refused to participate if she was, which was made public in a Wall Street Journal article.
“It hid hard,” Steele said on his show.
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Former ESPN colleagues Sage Steele and Stephen A. Smith reunited on Steele’s podcast. (Jesse Grant; Logan Bowles/Getty Images)
“I said, ‘OK, if I’m preaching to everyone, including my children, to stand up for what’s right, then am I going to continue to stay silent out of fear of a lot of things that were real?’ So the article came out and I went on air shaking, knowing what was probably going on behind the scenes. »
Steele said she received a text message from a concerned Smith saying, “Why? How does this help you?”
“That’s exactly what I texted you,” Smith recalled.
“I’ll never forget it,” Steele replied. “Because I knew that number 1, I knew that you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t care about me as a human being, let alone forget the broadcaster. And number 2, to me, it’s bigger than money, it’s bigger than position. It’s about principle at some point.”
Sage Steele speaks onstage during Players Tailgate by Bullseye Event Group on February 13, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Bullseye Event Group)
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“But that was the problem, and here’s what I thought you missed,” Smith replied. “You’re a very, very happy woman right now – that wasn’t the case then. There was a lot going on, and it’s no one’s business unless you want to say it. And the thing is, I knew that.”
Steele then revealed that she was going through a divorce.
“I’m not saying it has anything to do with your opinion, I’m saying it has everything to do with your desire to express it. I was saying ‘why’, in other words – you have a family, you have a lot of things to think about. It’s very easy for other people to sit back and let you do it… No, I’m thinking about the next five years of your life, the next 10 years, your family, your children. They won’t think about that. because their sorry, whoever these people are rooting against you, they’re not thinking about you. They’re thinking about when you’re going to provide them with fodder to talk about you… That’s what friends do.
Steele left the network in 2023 following a lawsuit over her sidelining by ESPN in 2021 when she spoke out on a podcast about the company forcing her to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Sage Steele speaks on stage during Players Tailgate hosted by Bobby Flay and presented by Bullseye Event Group for Super Bowl LVII on February 12, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Bullseye Event Group)
After settling the lawsuit, Steele said she left the company “so that I could more freely exercise my First Amendment rights.”
