Ex-ESPN anchor Sage Steele said she was told “not to” discuss certain political topics on social media when working at the network.
Steele said that, when the story of athlete Riley Gaines speaking out against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas broke in 2022, she didn’t understand “from a journalistic perspective” why ESPN wasn’t covering the story, “especially for a network that champions women so much.” She said ESPN selected Thomas, who was born male and now identifies as a woman, to be “honored” for women’s history month in March 2023.
“Anybody can say what they want to say about themselves and the pronouns and all that crap, but we know what he is,” Steele said on Fox News’ Hanging Out with Sean Hannity podcast. “And I think that there are millions of — we know that there are millions of other women that they could’ve chosen to celebrate, and they chose to celebrate a man. So that was a turning point for me, where I would tweet about it [online] and then get talked to about my tweets.”
Host Sean Hannity asked, “What would they say?” when talking to Steele about her posts, and she responded, “Not to.” She added that ESPN would tell her they noticed she had been liking posts from people like commentator Megyn Kelly, and she realized, “You’re watching what I like.”
Steele also discussed how her peers at ESPN would discuss political topics, such as Roe v. Wade being overturned or the Black Lives Matter movement, on shows about football or basketball. She said the “hypocrisy” of her peers discussing these topics while she was “punished” for discussing political topics “on an off-day, on a separate podcast” led her to sue the network.
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Steele left ESPN in August 2023 to exercise her “First Amendment rights more freely.” She started her own podcast, The Sage Steele Show, and also appeared at a campaign event for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024.
The former ESPN anchor interviewed then-President Joe Biden in March 2021. Following her exit, she revealed in April 2024 that she was “on script” for this interview, and was “told not to deviate.”
The Washington Examiner contacted ESPN for comment.