Ryan Clark’s time at ESPN ended unexpectedly after the network laid off the former NFL safety. Since then, former ESPN broadcaster Jemele Hill has publicly supported Clark against the critics who questioned his emotional response to losing his job.
However, while opinions continue to differ over Clark’s departure, Hill opened up on her own exit from ESPN.
Jemele Hill Relives Own ESPN Exit Over Donald Trump Controversy
Hill left ESPN in September 2018 after she negotiated a buyout of her multimillion-dollar contract. That decision followed months of intense attention in 2017 after a post on social media led to full-scale outrage.
“Obviously, when I called Donald Trump a white supremacist on Twitter in 2017, that gave the right all the ammunition they needed to whine about ESPN’s liberal ways,” Hill revealed in her July 29 blog.
“Rather than stand up for our show and for us, ESPN chose to de-Blackify it. DJ Jazzy Jeff was kind enough to do our show intro; they took that out.”
Hill said that experience changed how she viewed her future at the network and why she no longer believed it was the right environment for her.
“We had a huge personality wall on set that showed different aspects of our personal lives, famous cultural moments in sports such as John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s raised fists, and memorable music albums. Mike and I had been to the White House twice, so we had our photos with President Barack Obama on the wall. They took all that [expletive] down.”
Although ESPN suspended her for violating company policies, Hill later made it clear that the network did not fire her.
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She decided to leave because she no longer felt comfortable working under corporate limits that restricted her ability to speak openly on political and social issues.
Before officially leaving, Hill stepped away from her role as co-anchor of “SportsCenter” and moved to ESPN’s culture platform, “The Undefeated.” Once both sides recognized they were headed in different directions, she finalized her buyout and quickly launched the next phase of her career in independent media.
“I left SportsCenter in 2018 because I wasn’t about to let them play in my face like that.”
Still, the decision was a difficult one for Hill. She recalled that her mother urged her to stay, telling her, “Don’t let them people run you out of a good job.”
However, Hill felt she had reached a point where exiting was the only option. “It took her a long time to understand that ESPN wasn’t a safe place for me,” she concluded.
Since then, Hill has built a successful career outside traditional sports television.
She hosted the “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered” podcast, which officially ended its production in July 2023. She later started the sports and politics podcast “Spolitics,” released her memoir “Uphill,” and co-founded her own production company.
