Sage Steele is mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore.
The former ESPN anchor appeared Thursday on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show” and talked for two hours, with the conversation built around the lawsuit she settled earlier this week with the Worldwide Leader.
Steele had sued ESPN for retaliating against her by pulling assignments following her appearance on a podcast hosted by former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler in 2021.
On the show, she made controversial statements about being forced to get the COVID vaccine and former President Barack Obama identifying as Black on the census.
Steele made it quite clear she’s done holding back, saying she is “unafraid to now talk.”
“I refuse to be quiet about this anymore,” Steele said. “I don’t care anymore because this is my experience. … I’m allowed to feel the way I feel. When you try to silence me, I’m done.”
At the heart of Steele’s lawsuit was her contention that she was being held to a different standard than her colleagues, saying, “You can’t have it both ways.”
Steele feels unjustly treated because several colleagues went on the air to talk about race relations in the U.S. amid the George Floyd killing in 2020, and none of them were punished for speaking about what was on their minds.
However, she had “direct” and “private” conversations with ESPN brass for doing what she believed was the same thing her colleagues did, namely broadcasting personal opinions about sensitive social and political topics.
The difference with Steele’s case was her words went against the company’s policy and culture.
“All I ever wanted was consistency,” Steele said.
“And if we are allowing my peers to go on social media, much less on our own airwaves, saying things … that have nothing to do with sports that are political, … then I should be allowed on my personal time to give my opinion on my experiences personally, without telling others what to do… I think that’s just what breaks my heart. That there were different rules for me than everyone else.”
ESPN “sidelined” Steele in October 2021 after testing positive for COVID and allegedly forced her to apologize before letting her return to the air, and she made it quite clear to Kelly that she felt like she had no choice.
“I did not want to apologize,” Steele said. “I fought. I fought and I begged and I screamed, and I was told that if I want to keep my job, I have to apologize. … I knew there was a line somewhere. I just didn’t know where it was until I crossed it.”
When she returned to work, Steele admitted the lack of support from her ESPN co-workers upset her, saying she was “shaking” and “scared” when going back to the office.
What stuck with Steele was “the hypocrisy of the rules” and blasted ESPN for picking and choosing which ones to enforce with whom.
In April 2022, Steele filed a lawsuit against ESPN, claiming the network retaliated against her for the comments she made on Cutler’s podcast, a show which has no connection to ESPN or Disney, which owns the sports network.
On Tuesday, Steele announced she had settled her lawsuit against ESPN and was leaving the company.
