Former NBA analyst left ESPN under a cloud of controversy in 2021 and has been seen covering the NBA for a host of other outlets.
The award-winning multi-sport anchor was accused by the New York Times of racism, after comments she made about a black colleague Maria Taylor, in a leaked private interview.
She was upset that she was missing out on the coverage of the NBA finals and was quoted as saying “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling the pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity – which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it – like go for it."
She told Dan La Batard in a recent interview that she was never married to ESPN, and while she did not talk about why she left in a hurry she did say, “The thing that was really helpful was I didn’t start at ESPN, I left ESPN one other time," she told Le Batard on South Beach Sessions. "I went to go work for Turner and CNN, I came back.
“So, this was me leaving again. ESPN didn’t give me my card to be a journalist, they didn’t punch my ticket. I had worked other places for a decade before I even got there. I had established my identity and who I was. I had worked at multiple big media companies."
She continued chatting about the fallout, likening the relationship with ESPN as being trapped in a Stockholm Syndrome, essentially where a person falls in love with their kidnapper.
"When you’re in that ESPN world, there is a lot of sort of Stockholm syndrome of, this is the only thing that matters. Cable television is still where things are at," she told Le Batard. "I didn’t really understand that what had been the downsides and the restrictions of living your life [at one company]."
