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Aug. 17, 2023 - The Megyn Kelly Show
02:21:38
20230817_sage-steele-speaks-out-for-first-time-about-her-es
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Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show 00:02:48
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
Hey, everyone, I'm Megan Kelly.
Welcome to the Megan Kelly Show.
Today, we have an exclusive interview with now former ESPN host, Sage Steele.
And I am so excited for this conversation.
Sage is finally able to speak out after settling her lawsuit against ESPN and Disney, who Sage allegedly retaliated against her after she mildly criticized the Disney vaccine mandate and shared her opinion on what it's like to be biracial in America.
ESPN, a company that allows its anchors all the time to engage in political speech supportive of leftist causes, decided to single out this one host, condemning her comments, forcing her to apologize, and then punishing her anyway by taking away her on-air assignments.
Well, she wasn't going to take it sitting down.
She sued.
The case was settled this week, and Sage Steele, now a free agent, joins me today.
Sage, thank you so much for being here.
How are you?
Hi, Megan.
I am so honored to be here with you, of all people.
So, thank you for having me.
How am I?
That's a great question.
It depends on like the day, the minute, the second.
I've kind of been all over the place, but I know I'm going to be good.
I just, I just know I'm going to be okay.
Yes, and I think it takes a while.
You know, after a separation from a company like that, you've been with forever.
It takes a while for it to settle in and you to realize, like, I'm good.
I'm okay.
I'm going to be even better.
Yes.
And that's the other reason why I have so admired you because you've been there.
You've been through it all-good, bad, ugly ups and downs.
And this is the first time I've ever been separated from a company in this way, obviously.
And I was always such a goody two-shoes and let's not ruffle any feathers.
And apparently, that's changed.
But I really, I don't know, I just feel overwhelmed with every single emotion.
And that what I'm trying to do is be okay with that emotion and not try to fix it and run away from it, which I tend to do.
So I'm all in here.
I just, even when you know what's coming, because I did, obviously, once you file a lawsuit, you know it's going to end probably sooner than you were originally planning when my contract was up.
But even when you're prepared, it's still like, oh, it's over.
16 and a half years.
It's over.
Right.
And then you worry, what's over?
My relationship with ESPN or my career?
Emotions and Running Away 00:15:49
Yeah, right.
Although I've known deep down that even though I didn't know what was going to come next, I still don't know what's going to come next.
I have no idea.
You said free agent, by the way, good sports terminology there.
I'm really impressed.
You're getting there.
I, yeah, I don't have any idea what's next.
I have some ideas of what I might want, but I'm not there because I've needed to focus on my job up until the very last day.
And I loved focusing on my job till the very last day.
That's the weird part is letting go of that passion for what you do, because I loved my job on Sports Center every single day.
But I know that there will be something.
I've worked too hard for 28 years now to finish like this.
There's something coming.
We'll figure it out, you know?
Yeah, no, the career is not over, but the finishing at ESBN, this is a good finish.
I feel like, especially now, hello.
You did not tell me about the NFL films thing on your family and your dad.
I only watched that in preparation for today.
This is the perfect finish for Sage Steele's time at ESBN.
You're going out Khaleesi style in a blaze of glory.
You, I mean, now I know you a little personally prior to this, but I did not know your family backstory.
It's all coming together for me.
So before we get to the controversy and all the lawsuit, the big, let's just do some background because it's amazing the family you come from.
My God.
All right.
So you grew up a military Brett, as they say.
And just give us a little bit of detail on your family.
Yeah.
This is when I smile the most because I have the best family, Megan.
I am beyond blessed.
And I, I, yeah, I grew up as a really proud Army Brat.
And by the time I was 11 years old, I'd lived in four different countries.
And I used to have to, my parents would quiz, okay, where did we begin?
Let's go through the order of the countries and the states that we lived in because it was hard to keep track of, oh, hi, there we are.
I'm the oldest of three.
And that's in Belgium.
We lived there from 1981 to 84.
And how about that?
We would just go to random castles for our Christmas pictures, you know?
I mean, Megan, I was in my Girl Scout troop.
We would go to Paris for the day.
Recently, I was in for the day.
And I would complain.
I'd be like, do we have to go to Paris again?
This is so annoying.
All the American family who would come over, they always want to go to freaking Paris.
Now I'm like, hi, can I go to Paris and shop?
I haven't been since.
We lived in Greece from 1979 to 81.
I was just back there about a week and a half ago, hadn't been back in 42 years.
My parents hadn't been back.
And my dad has some health issues.
And I was, I've been working for three and a half years to get back to Greece to go to our little apartment in Glefara outside of Athens and go back to these amazing places that I didn't understand were amazing because it was just my life.
And now I'm like, look where I got to live and look at the diversity and the different cultures and people.
What an awesome upbringing.
I just, I never had a home.
And so I've never had a place to take my kids home to to say, look, that's where I, that's where I went to elementary school.
That's where I played softball.
I've never been able to do that because it's been all over the world.
So the key through that is that with all the moving and all the change, and there's a lot of adversity that comes with that, not only did I toughen up before I knew I was getting tough and preparing me probably for the crazy industry that you and I are in, but it just made our family unit like this.
And that's the only reason why I know that I'm standing right now after the last couple of years is because of my family.
And I think the military quite often can do that and bring you together because of so much change.
You don't have consistent friendships or neighbors or anything.
It's just you and the Steele family.
We're strong.
You know, reading up on you, it seems to me growing up in a military family is similar to growing up in a family of faith.
And oftentimes the two, you know, coalesce and are both present.
But, you know, what does being a faithful person mean?
It means you pass on a set of values to your children, a set of ethics, shared values that are reinforced every Sunday, or, you know, when you read the Bible, whatever it is.
It's a moral code that is passed on from parent to child with the help of a community.
And it seems to me, at least in your case, being in the military, a military family, was very similar.
And in particular, you and your brothers in the NFL film and your dad talking about the cadet prayer, which I confess I had never heard, not from a military family, but I love it.
And I want to put it on my wall and start teaching it to my kids right now.
Could you talk about the cadet prayer?
Do you want me to recite it?
Could you?
I mean, I think you know it, but yes.
Oh, I was forced.
Let me tell you, between the cadet prayer and Saturday morning inspections at our house growing up to check our bedrooms.
And my dad would pull out and open the underwear drawer.
Like there were rules, Megan.
And for every infraction, we had to do 10 push-ups.
So I was like jacked from a young age because I always had all these infractions and I didn't have my room perfectly done, which I love.
And I had to do it to my kids and it didn't work as well as when my colonel dad came knocking on my door.
I don't have that kind of power, apparently.
This prayer has saved me.
It has driven me.
It has uplifted me.
It has helped me make some of the toughest decisions in my life, including recently with work.
And I hope I get it right because I know my dad's watching, my parents watch it every day.
Helped me to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and to never tell a half truth when the whole can be won.
And when you think about that, the harder right versus the easier wrong.
I mean, I always say this, whenever I speak or recite it to someone who might be inquiring about it, I give like the grocery cart analogy.
Like, okay, when my kids were little and I live in Connecticut and it's cold and rainy and I have 15 grocery bags and I have to get to an appointment.
And what do you want to do with that cart when you're done?
I'd like to shove it on the curve.
I'm in a rush and it's all about me, right?
Okay, fine.
What's the right thing?
Is it right to leave it there for some young kid to come out in the snow and get it?
No, put the damn cart away.
Like it's so basic, but it also goes along really well with, you know, tough decisions that you have to make personally or professionally.
That prayer has done so much.
And also the back part of it, Megan, and this is just actually what I recited is the middle kind of snippet of it, the most important part in my dad's mind, which is why he wanted us to memorize it.
But to never tell a half truth when the whole can be won.
That's something I'm really looking forward to doing.
I've never been able to do that in my life, to be able to tell the whole truth and not tiptoe around.
It can be scary, but it is the harder right.
And once you accept it, once we're honest with what the right, because I believe we all usually know, like deep down, we might not want to think about what's right, but we know.
It's just easier to, when you can think of it that way, at least for me, it's really saved me.
I feel like it's what you were flirting with in the interview with Jay Cutler on his podcast that got you in trouble with ESPN.
You were kind of flirting with, I know what the truth is here.
I know that they shouldn't have forced us to get these shots in our arms.
And it was the mildest criticism, but we'll get to that in a minute.
But yeah, you flirted with it.
And I think once you go into your next chapter of fully embracing it, you're going to be happier than you've ever been.
All right, put a pin in that for now.
Let's go back to mom and dad, Mona and Gary.
Now, so your mom is white and your dad is black.
And this, they got married at a time when that was still somewhat controversial in some circles, including in your mom's family.
The NFL films crew zeroed in on a bit of this and what happened there.
Here's a clip to get the audience a flavor.
We ended up getting married at West Point.
We were young and very naive.
My parents pretty much disowned me and didn't come to the wedding or anything like that.
Mom and dad won't talk to her because she married a black man.
They were in Panama and she called her mom to say, I'm going to have a baby.
And her mom hung up the phone.
Because of my parents and all, I didn't count on other people.
It was just, I knew I could count on Gary.
There were many things that were said about what a relationship with a black husband would be and how you would end up being treated, etc.
And so how are her parents going to know she's okay?
So I believe it was once a month.
Once a month.
And once a month, I would pen a letter.
Here's where we are.
Here's what's going on.
Here's what we're doing together.
Never received a return letter.
I'd say, they need to know you're okay.
All right.
It was the right thing to do.
It was to prove a point.
You know, I am taking good care of this young woman.
I am doing the right thing.
That's what you come from.
That kind of strength, that kind of love, right?
The romance between your parents.
What a gift that is to you and your brothers too.
What do you feel when you look at that clip?
Oh, look at you.
You did it, Megan.
I have watched that probably 30 times.
And every time, this is what happens.
The most incredible part is that I didn't know that story.
My parents had never told me that story.
They were busy parenting and supporting us kids.
And so I'm so grateful to NFL Films for pulling that story out of my parents and having it documented in such a way that long after I'm gone, my great-grandkids will see what their great-great-grandparents did, the decision they made.
That's the only reason why any of us are here.
And my dad has done so many incredible things as the first black man ever to play varsity football at Army, breaking the color barrier.
So many things that he pushed through as an Army brat himself.
His father was a Buffalo soldier, like incredible things.
And he's my guy.
And my mom, I say quite often, I believe she is even stronger because I cannot imagine having the parents that I had and the support that I still have, to be forced to make that kind of a decision between the man you love and your family.
In 1970, 71, coming off the civil rights era, when it wasn't popular, period, but to have to choose between your parents and the man you love.
And she did it.
And what if she hadn't?
What if?
I mean, obviously I wouldn't be here, but like an entire generation is different because of my mom's courage.
And my dad, like, he is a real man.
And I believe there's not many.
It's not that there's not many.
I'm sorry.
It's just times have changed.
And for my dad to be that kind of a man, to make sure her parents knew he had her back and that he was taking care of her, that is the ultimate love story.
And what they have been through has reminded me that what I'm going through or have been through is like cake.
What they did is so much harder and so much more important.
So that's one of the reasons why I know I'm okay, because what they did is 10 times harder.
And they're the reason, they're my why.
They're the reason why I have stood up and kept fighting because it's the right thing, just like they did in 1970.
Did your grandparents ever come back into your life?
I mean, did they, did they ever reconcile?
Yeah, they did.
it took six or seven years and it was initiated by my aunt Margie who is my mom's youngest of the of the four I guess she's third of the four siblings my mom's the oldest and all the siblings were supportive it was just the mom and dad and they did come back you know a lot of damage was done and unfortunately selfishly for me and my brothers you know we lived all over the world and in different countries and states and so we were never able to establish that relationship with them because of the logistics.
And you know what?
I have fond memories of them and they loved me.
And I know now, and my grandmother is Italian, was Italian.
Her name, Megan, was Philomena Lena DiPertola.
So she's a little Italian.
And my grandfather is a William Robert O'Neill, a little Irish.
So my mother, like, get out of the way.
She's almost 73 and she will take you out and everybody else.
So when I get fiery, I'm like, that there you go.
Yes.
You relate to this.
I too am the product of a half, half Italian, half, half Irish family.
A lot of fire.
Lot of 10%.
Yeah.
All right.
So that, okay, that's good.
There was a reconciliation.
I remember your dad talked about it a little bit in the film and like how he made clear to his in-laws, you know, I'm never going to forget what happened over these six years, but we can consider this day one and go forward.
I mean, his strength is extraordinary.
You talk about him being just, as you put it, he was the first black player at Army or at West Point.
I want to make sure I get it correct.
Yes, first black to play varsity football ever at West Point.
And it's so crazy because when you look at football teams now and how they're made up racially, you know, I think there's a picture in that NFL films piece of his entire Army football team, probably in 1967.
And he's pretty easy to spot.
The one face of the entire football team and in that little, you know, black and white photo that's on that piece.
Yeah, he did it.
But you know what he says?
And he said it in the piece too.
He's like, I just wanted to play football.
You know, this wasn't about race.
He said, somebody had to be the first.
And it happened to be me.
And he has handled it so beautifully.
And he's a member of the Army Sports Holocaust.
He was actually drafted in the NFL, which, you know, back then, like cadets in any service academy were never allowed to go play professionally.
You had to serve your five years.
And now they get pardoned and they're able to do so more often if they're at a very top level.
But that wasn't heard of.
And the Detroit Lions still drafted him in the 17th round.
So I'm just super proud of my dad.
And that's where I got my love of sports is from him.
Yes.
So this is like, all this makes sense.
Your love of sports, your love of country, your attitude toward, you know, today's obsession with race that's taken over the country, which we can get to in a bit.
But all of this, your background really sets up the sage steel that I know and that we've all been watching for the past couple of years and how you've been, you've gone against the grain on some dicey issues.
And someone tried to punish you for it and you didn't take it lying down.
I love the love, love, love, the whole background.
I want to know Mona.
I want to know Gary.
I can't skip past the background without talking about this moment, though, Sage.
I have to tell you, as somebody who lost her dad to a heart attack when I was only 15, he was only 45.
I too cried when I watched the NFL films because of the closeness that you have, the relationship you have with him.
And they talked about in the film, and you did as well, when your dad got cancer and went through some significant health issues.
Family Bonds Through Illness 00:05:14
Two vertebrae removed and just kept fighting through it.
And there's a beautiful clip of you talking about that in the film.
Watch.
He is a prostate cancer survivor and is currently battling multiple myeloma.
It's hard to see your hero.
You know, hurting.
He wanted to be the first person to ever give me flowers.
So I turned 16 and roses were delivered to the door and it was my dad.
He's my guy.
Still is, you know, I mean, no one takes the place of your dad, right?
He's a rock.
Everything that he's gone through, we all get together and he's thanking us for being there.
They took out two vertebrae.
C6 and C7.
A tumor the size of a little bit bigger than a golf bowl.
Back.
We won't show you the scars, although it's kind of cool that you're not going to see him.
It's like, I didn't know if I was going to make it to 71.
I just want to be around you guys.
I just want to live.
Okay.
So I can't, right?
He wanted to be the first to give me flowers.
That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard.
I've got to talk to Doug today.
He's got to be the first to give Yarthy flowers.
We got to keep that rolling in our own family.
Yeah.
And how is he?
That's what, I mean, that was my number one thing.
How's he doing?
Oh, it's been a tough couple of weeks.
He still, first of all, has prostate cancer, which he had the robotic surgery to remove the prostate in 2011.
And then it was gone.
And then two years later, it came back and it metastasized and it's in his lower spine.
It has behaved lately.
I talk to that prostate cancer a lot and I'm like, you stay in your lane.
And so that has been dormant.
The multiple myeloma happened in 2017.
And, you know, he just turned 77 in June.
His spirits are incredible.
I just told you about our trip to Greece.
And I've been planning it since 2020.
And then the damn pandemic got in the way and some of his health issues.
And I was determined to make this happen.
It was a 15-day trip scheduled with me and my mom, my three kids, and some dear friends of ours from here in Connecticut who are actually from Greece.
And we had to cut it short.
I had to come home, bring my mom and dad home after eight days.
There's just a lot of effects.
Multiple myeloma is a blood cancer, but it affects your bones.
And it has just taken quite a toll.
I've never seen him in as bad a shape and as much pain as he was in in Greece a week ago.
But it was, it was a moment because I saw him in pain and he was so happy.
He still speaks Greek fluently.
It's a drink.
It's incredible.
But he was so happy and I was like, we're going to stay.
And then I realized he was in such pain and he was pushing through for me.
So I, you know, took over as the little girl and I'm like, dad, we got to go.
And I got them the next day, kind of an emergency trip back to get to Johns Hopkins, where he's been treated for the last 12 years for all of his cancers.
And I, you know, Santorini to Athens to JFK to five hours to Baltimore and Friday traffic to the hospital and my poor mother.
And I did it.
I left my kids in Greece, which was insane, but we have dear friends and they partied in Mikonos without me.
I still, they're not telling me what happened, but they're alive.
So I guess it's.
They're a little older.
They're like 19, 20.
Yeah, that's true.
Let me clarify.
17, 19, and 21.
And I know there's no drinking age in Greece, so whatever.
But I will tell you, my dad told me yesterday, thank you for, you know, doing the right thing, the heart or right in that moment when I wanted him to continue to enjoy, because I don't know how many more trips like this are left, frankly, just because of the difficulty it is to travel.
And by the way, he's shrunk about three inches.
He's still 6'3, 6'4.
He's a massive picture of him, the colonel.
They call him the colonel.
I know his grandkids call him the colonel.
He's towering in those West Point photos.
I mean, it seems hard to believe when you see somebody that strong, both physically and mentally and emotionally, you know, start to hurt, start to suffer that it's the same person.
But he seems like such a dignified, strong guy, Sage.
I hope you would love him.
You would love him.
And I hope you meet him too.
But I got them.
I got them to Greece.
We did the most important thing.
We got to that little apartment.
We got to go to the bakery around the corner where I grew up going to get warm bread every day.
And my parents got to go back to when it was such a beautiful, innocent time.
And I'm so grateful.
So it's like one of those things.
It was an amazing trip.
And all the hard work that you and I do to support our families and to be able to have experiences that those eight days were worth everything, all the pain and the ups and downs, because I got to, I, as a daughter, got to, got to give them that.
Taking Responsibility Early 00:10:22
This makes me want to take my mom back to Syracuse, New York, where we'll freeze our asses off incleating in June.
Maybe we'll have a trip too.
She'll go around yelling at everybody and I'll yell at her.
They will do it the Italian way.
Okay, so the whole story has got me.
Like, honestly, I'm already, we're both already in tears.
So that's that portion of our interview, I think, is over.
And we'll move forward to what happens next for a young stage SEAL.
So you decide to go into reporting and you wound up going to high school in Indiana.
And now we understand why sports.
Sports is in your blood.
Sports is in your family.
Because, you know, I always wonder what makes a young woman choose sports reporting over news reporting.
And I will confess, I think too many of them are like, I want to be the hot girl on the sideline.
Forgive me.
That's what I think.
Not Sage Steel, right?
I mean, like, that's.
So you actually knew about sports and you wanted to report on them.
You go.
Your career starts taking off.
Local news at first.
And then 2007 comes the dream job, right?
I mean, when ESPN comes calling, that's got to be the dream job, especially in 2007.
I had been talking about ESPN since I was in high school.
I was 11 when I announced I was going to be a sportscaster.
I was 11 years old.
I knew.
I was watching the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and I was so in awe of these athletes.
And as an athlete myself, not a great one.
I tried, but I, you know, I ran track and field and I did the equestrian thing.
But I remember being on the starting line of the 800 meters and wanting to vomit and almost vomiting and other things too, because I was nervous.
And I'm like, how on God's green earth do these athletes work their entire lives for this one moment with the entire world watching and not crap their pants, not pass out?
Like I wanted to know what made them great and what gave them that mental toughness to have it all come together at the perfect moment, a once in a lifetime chance.
And I wanted to tell their stories, what made them great, because that translates in every aspect of life.
So I knew from a young age I wanted to do that.
And then when ESPN became big, I was like, that's what I want to do.
So here's the funny story is that I started working at ESPN in 2007, but I got my first offer from ESPN in 2004.
And I actually turned it down, even though I'd been saying for 20 years that that was my dream job.
And the reason I turned it down is because I was pregnant with my second child.
My first was like 18 months old.
And I went up for the audition to Bristol, right around the corner here.
And I actually, it helped me to be pregnant because I was like, y'all don't understand what's happening in my belly right now.
Like this child, boy or girl, I didn't know what it was, is bouncing on my bladder and you're asking me to redo a highlight.
Let's go.
So I think that attitude or that the hormones helped me like have a good audition because I wasn't tight.
But I got back and they offered the job.
And I just, I knew, thanks to one of my greatest friends, the late Stuart Scott, who's a true legend at ESPN.
He had pulled me aside before.
We had the same agent at the time.
And he's like, listen, girl, you gotta be ready to go to ESPN.
It is not for the faint of heart.
And I told him I wanted to have, I wanted to have four kids.
And he's like, just be ready.
Even when you're ready, you're not ready.
And so I took that advice.
and made my own decision.
My agent, my husband, ex-husband now, but my husband at the time, my parents, everyone was like, have you lost your mind?
This has been your dream since you're a childhood.
And you're saying no.
And I just said, my parents raised me.
Mom said, you raised me to focus on family.
And if you put family first, everything else will work out.
So I turned it down.
My agent's like, well, good luck.
You're going to be blackballed.
They'll never call you back because ESPN doesn't need you.
You need ESPN.
And I took a shot and they called back three years later.
That's such a nice beginning.
And those feelings when you first walk into that amazing first, especially television job, because it's very heady.
It's exciting.
It has interesting people in the industry.
There's nothing like that.
It really does.
I remember that feeling at Fox, just feeling like this is the beginning of everything.
Anything is possible.
My life is going to exciting places.
I can't possibly fully understand where, but that feeling of excitement and promise is, it's tough to beat, you know?
And then they beat you down and you swim in a toxic.
But we get wiser, Sage.
We get wiser.
Get some battle scars.
It started off terribly because I was in over my head.
At the time, they would train us on ESPN news.
It was a good, at least 30-day process where there just weren't as many eyeballs in ESPN news.
And you did a bunch of highlights and you could screw up and no one was watching.
And I didn't get that because there was a shortage one day and someone called in sick and they're like, oh my gosh, we need you.
And I was just shadowing people.
And I'm like, you what?
Megan, I knew I wasn't ready.
But what do you do?
Do you say no?
No, you have to do it.
You do it.
And my first day on the job for all those basketball fans out there, college hoops, was day one of the NCAA tournament in 2007, March Madness.
That first Thursday, there's like 1,300 games in one day.
And I was asked to host a 6 p.m. Eastern Sports Center prime time.
And an hour show, live show, went to two hours and 45 minutes with no rundown out the window, all the stars in studio who I had never even met go.
And it did not go so well.
I was called in the office after and they're like, so how do you think you did?
And I'm like, I mean, I'd been sobbing because I knew I was awful.
But there were some extenuating circumstances and the right producers weren't on that day and there was zero communication.
But I took responsibility, even though there was nothing I could have done different.
I know there was nothing I could have done differently.
It still didn't feel good because you only get that first chance, that one chance for that first impression, right?
The thing that saved me is an executive who pulled me aside, who ran Sportsman at the time.
He's still there.
After 30 years and despite all the layoffs, he's still there.
And he pulled me in his office and he said, we set you up to fail and I'm sorry.
Wow.
Yeah.
So he never takes responsibility like that in television.
That's amazing.
What a guy.
Never.
I'm still friends with him.
I see him quite often at a workout class in town.
And I've told him a million times.
He's like, ah, whatever.
I meant it.
We screwed up.
And I'm like, no, you saved me.
Now, I was demoted pretty quickly after that.
I didn't get many other opportunities for a couple of years.
I went on updates at five in the morning and I was never to be heard from again.
It took me two years to find my competence again.
Actually, it took me two years to get pissed off and to realize that it happened for a reason.
Some they took some responsibility.
I took some responsibility, even though, again, I was a rookie and maybe shouldn't have been put in the position, but I said yes.
And I thought, I'll be damned if I'm going to let them or anyone else dictate how this goes from here on out.
I only had one year left on a three-year deal.
And I said, this has been my lifelong dream.
I got to go.
I have to fix this.
And even if they never give me another contract again, which I was convinced they would not, why would they?
I had no confidence.
I was scared to death of my own shadow.
I knew I didn't deserve to be there in my mind.
And I said, this is it.
It's do or die.
In the meantime, I was prepared to not get another contract.
And so my husband at the time was a full-time stay-at-home dad.
And the kids, when I started at ESPN, were 11 months, two, and four.
And I thought, well, all the I'm the breadwinner, the soul breadwinner.
I have to find something else.
So I would do my morning show updates in the morning.
And then in the evenings, I started to sell our Bond skincare, like a pyramid thing.
And I would go host parties and sell skincare and beg people to buy $80 moisturizers that I couldn't afford.
And I'm the worst salesperson, but I was a disaster and was sleeping two hours a night.
But I'm like, I have to go out with a bang, if nothing else.
And they gave me another contract.
I think the anger drove me and that showed on the air.
And they gave me another shot and another shot and another shot.
So I pulled myself up from my bootstraps and I think that army toughness kicked in at the last second.
Yes, yes.
Oh my gosh, I'm thinking about my friend right now who's a single mom and she's wondering what, where her next paycheck is going to come from.
And I keep telling her, I'm like, go get a job at the Piggly Wiggly.
Do it.
You know, like, this will just be a chapter in your life story.
It's, you know, work hard.
You save yourself.
That's what I say to her.
That's what you realized.
No one's coming to save me.
I have to do it.
And instead of feeling like a victim in that moment, it can turn into something so empowering that shows you, like those beautiful biceps of yours, you do have the strength.
You have it more ways than one.
Please hug your friend for me because I remember that.
And I remember whether it was my first job in South Bend, Indiana, on TV during the day, waiting tables, passing out steaks at night, or when I reached the pinnacle for a sportscaster, the end-all-be-all, the worldwide leader at ESPN on TV during the day and selling skincare at night.
No one knew, but I knew that I had to do it for my family and to save myself, knowing that I'm not going down without a fight.
I just made it, I didn't know I had a fight in me until I had to.
Grateful for a Brutal Start 00:02:03
So I'm grateful for that brutal start.
I'm grateful for getting my butt kicked by people there, even all the way up to the very end, because now I know that I can kind of handle anything.
I'm like, well, that's, I mean, this would bring it to become important on multiple fronts, personal and professional.
That's where we'll pause.
We'll squeeze in a quick break.
More with the one and only Sage Steel coming up.
Loving, loving the whole thing.
Okay, so fantastic me loses that board.
HBO Max, Prime Video, Sky Showtime, you name it.
You get the experience of the whole family, and it works over the whole.
On the phone, on the phone, on the phone, on the phone, on the phone, on the phone, on the phone, on the phone after a strand day on Granka.
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All you need is internet.
And all the internet, 3 months, 79 kroner per month, 0 binding, just TV and streaming, just like you would have it.
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Picking Brains on Mentorship 00:10:10
I mean, I don't know if it's because it's a male-dominated industry, news in general is kind of cutthroat, but and especially for women, but especially for some reason in the sports journalism field.
Was that your experience?
Has that been your experience?
Yes.
And it just broke my heart.
Yeah.
Yes.
I mean, yes.
I'm so tired of sugarcoating things, man.
And it's like, it's probably my biggest disappointment on my side, or I guess our industry as a whole.
Especially because, as women, what do we say?
We talk about the men all the time.
And we're always like, you know, and they're keeping us down in the glass ceiling.
And not, we do it to ourselves half the time.
And to me, it's inexcusable.
So I remember when I got to ESPN and I was so excited because there were not many, but a couple of other on-air women who had children.
And I just wanted to pick their brain.
One in particular, I wanted to pick her brain because how do you do this on the national level with little kids, you know?
And she wasn't having it.
Really?
I'm clear, like, you're not on my level next.
So I was like, sorry, one of the people that I kind of idolized for so many years, too, watching from afar.
That happened many times.
And I just, I felt so alone because, in general, and in sports, I mean, you don't want to rely on the men early on in my career for advice or help because you're assuming, especially when I came out of college in 1995, that they don't want you there anyway, which wasn't the case.
It's just kind of what's taught to you.
And the assumption it was the case with some, but I don't want to put everybody in that basket.
But you're supposed to be there for each other as the women until you are, apparently.
And it just was another level at ESPN.
What I realized, though, again, was I'm grateful for that because I realized that, gosh, once I'd been there a few years and got that second contract and thought, okay, maybe, maybe I have a shot here to continue this career, that I was determined to not allow other women to feel the way I had alone and scared to death.
So I remember trying really hard when other women would come in and reaching out.
And, you know, most of them did not have kids.
Think any of them had kids really.
And some of them had no interest, and that's fine.
I mean, I used to host, you know, like your Stella and Dot, like your jewelry parties and clothing cavity parties and whatever.
And I did it to try to invite people over.
And I'm such a social butterfly, and most of the time it didn't work.
They didn't really show up, but it's okay.
That was their choice.
And I tried, I just thought, if I'm going to complain about how I was treated, then I owe it to the next woman to at least offer a hand, you know, and all of branch.
And it didn't, it didn't really get much better through the years, but I got better with it myself.
And I think that's the key.
Once you realize that you're trying, you just can't control how everybody else receives things or behaves.
And then you kind of get, I found a piece with it.
I just, it's also one of those things where it's a lesson quite often.
I think we hear it a lot in sports.
Like, you know, we tell our kids, you know, your favorite athlete, you don't want to meet him, you know, because sometimes you're disappointed.
That's what happened with me with a couple of women where I was like, gosh, I had you here for years.
And then I was like, you nice try, Megan Kelly.
Here's the good news, though.
Even though you were getting the frosty reception from the women, I know you had the pleasure of working with delightful men like Keith Olberman.
So I'm sure it was really warm and fuzzy on that side.
That was wonderful.
I can't.
Okay, I have a story.
Oh, go.
I was doing the 6 p.m. Sports Center for three years, I think.
Probably my least favorite role job when I was there, but I was doing that show and prime time, and you don't say no to it and whatever.
So when my co-host was out, Keith Olbermann had been brought back for, I don't know, the third time at ESPN.
And he was living in New York City, of course.
And Keith has a lot of dogs and loves his dogs.
I love my dog too, sometimes.
And he, when he would fill in, though, decided that he didn't want to leave his dogs and he couldn't come to Bristol.
So I was asked to go to New York to do the show in that studio instead.
So Keith could be with his dogs.
And listen, again, as a sportscaster, Keith was one of the OGs.
I mean, Keith was incredible in the heyday of Sports Center.
Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick and I mean, Bob Lee, who's the all-time goat in my mind, and Stuart Scott and Kenny Main.
And I mean, Keith was great at that and talented.
And I looked up to him.
It was another one of those.
Damn it.
Why did I meet one of my one of the people that I loved?
You know, he was fine to my face.
I'd love to see him face to face now, just to have a conversation, which the C word, God forbid, we use that these days and have a conversation.
But listen, I see what he says.
It gets sent to me.
People actually don't even waste their time anymore because people like that who are honestly, I'm not trying to be rude or mean or funny, but like when you're so full of hatred, I don't want that energy in my life.
I'm such a positive person and I really had to work at that.
And I'm actually a really nice person.
It's Keith Sloss.
I mean, I'm kind of fun, but he's not.
He's proven that.
Was he nice to you?
Like when you saw him in person, when you were working together?
Because I mean, I see he's attacking you.
Trust me, he's attacking me.
And I'm attacking him too.
And it's fun regularly on Twitter nowadays, but when you were colleagues, how was that?
It was fine to my face.
You know, listen, I think he knew that we probably didn't agree on most things.
But to me, I actually took it as even more of a challenge.
I knew, I mean, hello, who didn't know his politics?
I just don't happen to care about his politics or anyone else's because I'm looking at you as a human being.
How do you treat me?
And at that time, he treated me well.
I don't know what he said behind my back at that time, but also he was filling in on my show.
So maybe there was that dynamic that changed the way that he treated me and was respectful.
But I will always be respectful to others.
I always have been.
There's one moment when I had to have a moment with a former co-host after an incident that will someday be in the book because the book's going to be really good, Megan.
I just have to find the energy and the focus to write it.
Help me.
But it's fine.
I just, it was another one of those disappointing moments where you're like, later, once I see the hatred that he's spewing, I'm like, gosh, you just don't want to meet the people that you think are great.
No, well, you were very wrong.
I'm sorry to tell you.
Very wrong.
He is not great.
And I do believe, I don't say this about everybody.
I genuinely don't.
He's a raging misogynist.
He's a total prick.
Let's just be honest.
Complete and utter prick who I have zero desire to see you face to face with, never mind myself.
He tweeted this out this week.
I can take him, Megan.
Like I could totally take him down.
I mean, sorry.
Yeah, you could.
And you're so much classier than he is that it should never happen.
The two of you should never interact.
He tweeted this out on Tuesday after your settlement was announced about you, Sage.
Doesn't know the difference between the First Amendment and First Take, which I just had to be told is an ESBN show.
An utter phony who will never realize for as long as 15 seconds that everyone can see through her at all times.
So Keith Elberman is apparently, I mean, in addition to being evil and a misogynist, a moron, because there are special laws in Connecticut, which is what made it very problematic for ESBN to F with you.
So he should go do his little research.
One thing he's not is a lawyer.
And it is very apparent in any attempted legal take that he offers.
So anyway, enough about that loser.
So that's ESBN.
But notwithstanding some of the nastiness internally, your career is thriving.
You're doing well and getting more opportunities.
And you're hosting various specials and you're hosting various shows.
And then you went on.
Okay, forgive me, but I know Jay Cutler is like a former NFL guy, right?
Like what, who, who is Jay Cutler and what brought you to his show?
This is another reason why I love you.
You just own the whole lack of sports thing.
I just love it.
He is a former NFL quarterback.
He played for the Chicago Bears for many years and he had started a, he retired.
He used to be married to Kristen Cavallari.
So he's in that whole Hollywood scene too.
And I knew his publicist and he said, hey, Jay Cutler started a new podcast and he's only had two episodes, but he wanted to have a woman.
And would you be willing?
I mean, it was like a favorite to the publicist.
I'd never met Jay.
And I said, sure, why not?
I mean, I'm a sportscaster.
I talked about him a million times on the air and why not?
So it was really, it was really that simple.
It's not like I was, you know, going on with, you know, Megan Kelly or Tucker Carlson, where there's, there's, it's a news political lean, maybe.
It was a quarterback.
It was just to have a conversation with the former QB.
Okay.
And so this was during the whole COVID pandemic.
Was it 2021, Sage?
Yes.
Okay.
2021.
So you go on, you're having a conversation.
And you said a few things that caused the backlash and that will ultimately lead to the lawsuit.
So we'll play a couple.
Now, this one actually wasn't, I don't think this is part of the, you know, what ESBN was hitting you for, but you'll tell me.
You made a comment that I referenced earlier, my own beliefs about female reporters and, you know, like the ones who you choose to mentor and the ones who you really don't.
And this is Sat one.
Dress Codes and Professionalism 00:03:55
I love talking about this.
Here's the thing.
There is a fine line and I handled it.
Like I didn't get anybody's because that's not my personal, it wasn't my personality then.
I might now a little more.
But I do think as women, we need to be responsible as well.
It isn't just on players and athletes and coaches to act a certain way.
I mean, I've had talks with young women who like would come in and they'd intern with me, with our channel, or just other women who reach out to me now.
And I've said to a couple of them, they're like, well, would you look at my tape?
Would you do this?
And I've said, listen, I would love to, but the way that you present yourself, it's not something I want to be associated with.
So when you dress like that, I'm not saying you deserve the gross comments, but you know what you're doing when you're putting that outfit on too.
Like women are smart.
So don't play coy and put it all on the guys when we, and again, I'm not saying anybody deserves anything.
Yes.
But we need to be responsible as women too, because we know what we're doing.
100% true.
Everything you said is correct.
But was there a blowback for that?
Was that also something they didn't like?
Yes.
It was very clearly one of the three things that they did not like.
I stand by it.
I will say it till the day I die.
I've been in those locker rooms.
I've been in corporate boardrooms.
I've been to clubs.
There's a difference what we wear and we know it.
I also have, I have three kids.
I have two daughters.
They're now 21.
So she's an adult and 17.
And we've had these discussions/slash arguments for years.
And listen, it's a different time.
It's a different era.
When I was in college, the end thing was your like two XL baggy sweatshirts that you wore around campus.
And it wasn't about the style have styles have changed.
Instagram, social media has changed the viewpoint for our daughters and the pressures that are on them and the body image stuff too.
So I get it.
Things have changed.
However, to me, our standards should not.
And I tell them, I'll say it again, we are smart.
Women are brilliant.
Women are the better species.
To me, like we're, we're just amazing.
And so don't play dumb because we know that when we wear certain things, we're going to get certain looks.
I say this to my daughter, both of them.
I'm like, listen, you are stunning in every way.
God made you perfectly.
When you wear that, that, and it's down here or up here, I'm like, listen, I love men.
I love men, but I'm looking at you too right now.
And I'm not interested in women, but I'm looking at you too because you're like, you're, you're.
So I just, I'll continue to make the separation too.
We do not deserve negative comments, certainly anything that goes beyond that hand's touch.
Nothing.
It's disgusting.
Men be better.
Women be better because we know exactly what we're doing and our why.
And I'm just saying that I think that there's a way to be attractive and maybe even sexy and professional.
You don't have to pick one.
And I will always stand by that.
That's right.
I couldn't agree with you more.
You can, in the, in the workplace setting, dress professionally and you will, you should expect professional results.
But if you go in there dressed like, you know, a prostitute, you're going to get all kinds of attention that you do not want.
It's a simple thing.
It's a simple, it's not to say, okay, it's sexually assaulted.
It's your fault.
It's to say when the eyes come on you, you cannot sit back and say, oh, he looked at me.
Oh, he came on to me.
It's like, well, why were you showing your coochie at the workplace?
Because that's going to make most men look.
Like, all right, stand by.
I'm going to squeeze in a quick break and we'll pick it up on the opposite side of this as stage as Sage Teal stays with us.
Don't forget, folks, you can find the Megan Kelly Show live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 every weekday at Noon East.
The Bandaid Incident Explained 00:05:03
Full video show at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly.
You can get the good clips there too.
The audio podcast is available wherever you get your podcast for free.
Check it out.
We'll be right back.
All right, Sage.
So the other two things that made a lot of headlines were comments on the vaccine and then comments about being the child of being a biracial child and comparing what Obama had said about himself.
So as we can see in the interview, you've got a band-aid on your arm because you were complying with the ESPN slash Disney mandate that all of its employees get the vax.
And not only did they make you get the vax, the double vax, they made you get a booster and you complied.
You complied, even though you didn't want to comply, but you did it.
And then you had the temerity to make a mild criticism of the fact that you were forced into it.
Like everybody else there, here's that bit, Saw 3.
What's the band-aid for?
Well, I got my shot today.
I respect everyone's decision.
I really do.
But to mandate it is sick and it's scary to me in many ways.
But I have a job, a job that I love and frankly, a job that I need.
But again, I love it.
I just, I'm not surprised it got to this point, especially with Disney.
I mean, a global company like that.
But I just, like, it was actually emotional.
Like, so, and it's funny, everybody else has their, yay, look, and here's my card.
And let's like, you know what?
You want to see what my face looked like when I had to do it?
So I get it to an extent that I think the mandate is what I really have an issue with.
And I don't know.
I don't know what comes next.
But I do know for me personally, I feel, I feel like defeated.
So well said.
And now, especially that people are being more honest about the downsides of the vaccines and the number of people who have been vaccine injured and the efficiency and the ineffectiveness of the vaccines in so many other ways.
I mean, it's, it's like, it's just indisputable that you had every right to object.
And yet you did not get the phone call from anybody at ESPN saying, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
You know, I heard you.
And it was to the contrary.
That day, and I haven't watched that in a long time because obviously there's been so much ugliness that has come from that podcast as a whole and those comment that my comments.
And by the way, I own everything, every single thing I said.
I would say it again today and I still believe it.
So I don't want to separate myself from that.
But that day, like I literally, Megan had just come from the stupid grocery store pharmacy to get the shot.
That's why the bandaid, like I've been asked a couple of times, even recently, was that a prop to stir the pot and to get them to ask you about that?
I was like, no, I literally was late getting the shot because I sat in my car crying saying, I cannot believe I'm going to go against what I believe is right and my morals and values and what I, what I believe being forced with my body to keep my job.
But I knew I had no choice.
I am a mother of three.
I'm a single mother of three.
Their father is here and he's a wonderful father, but I'm 100% the breadwinner.
And I knew that I had no choice.
And I sat in that car and I was disgusted with myself for caving.
See, I get emotional again.
It's so stupid.
I went in the grocery store and I sat down and the nurse looked at me.
She's like, are you okay?
Because I'm like, crying.
And I said, no, I'm not okay.
I'm being forced to do this.
And I don't believe it's right.
Not yet.
Give it a year.
See what more they learn.
This is still experimental.
Like, just give me time before I have to put this in my body.
And the nurse looked at me and grabbed my hand and said, this is so wrong and I'm sorry.
Wow.
And she gave me a squeeze ball to, you know, clench my fist to get a good vein and whatever.
Like, I don't even remember.
I don't, maybe it wasn't for a vein.
Maybe it was here.
I don't know.
I was, it's all a blur.
And I'll never forget that moment.
And Megan, I changed at that moment when that shot went here.
So no, I didn't leave the bandaid on for a prop.
I forgot it was there.
And I just literally sprinted in and set up this laptop in my bedroom upstairs and turned on Zoom and we did it.
That's all it was.
It wasn't intentional, but I was obviously emotional.
And I'll say this too, that morning I had been praying about it and I asked God for a sign.
Calling Out Hypocrisy 00:12:06
Like, should I do this?
Or should I take a chance and walk away?
Well, I have another job.
Will I be able to keep a roof over the head of my children?
And I said, just give me a sign.
And I was in the shower and I opened my eyes and I looked out and there's this tile, a marble tile that I'd seen a million times for a million showers I've taken.
And for some reason, when I opened my eyes at that moment, the marble was in the form of an angel.
And I just said, oh my, I asked for a sign.
And to me, that sign was, you're going to be okay.
I got you.
And I have a strong faith.
And for me, at that moment, that's what I needed.
And I drove to the grocery store and I got the shot and I sprinted home and I went on the podcast and the rest is history.
And honestly, it could have been so much more vicious if you really wanted to unload on them.
Oh, I held back.
Did you see me look to the side at one point?
I was like, breathe deeply.
Don't say it.
And because I have a right to my opinion because I complied.
I complied.
I got it.
I got the booster in order to go to the masters a couple months later.
Like I did everything.
But I'm allowed to have an opinion.
I thought.
Why aren't you allowed to say, like, that's exactly the thing?
You did what they asked you to do.
There's no written rule that you then can't say, I object to it.
I don't like what I'm being made to do.
And yet they tried to silence you.
They were very upset.
I'm going to get to the whole backlash, but I just want to play the third sound bite to set it up for the audience.
And it was a comment about race.
So we've already set up your background.
People know about Barack Obama's background.
And here's what you said in Satu.
I used to do a couple fill-ins on The View.
And I guess this was even before, this is when Obama was still president.
And Barbara Walters like ripped me live TV and then afterwards too, because they were wondering, they're like, why is it so important to you to say that you're biracial?
I'm like, I, because my mom's white, she's Irish Italian and my dad's black.
And I, I'm like, why, why not?
Like, I actually feel like I have the best of both worlds.
Yeah.
And I think it's a huge blessing.
And I'm, why not?
And, and she's like, well, what happens when you, um, when you fill out your census?
I'm like, well, I don't know when the last time I filled out my census was, but if they make you choose a race, she's like, what are you going to put?
I go, well, both.
She's like, well, you can't.
She goes, well, what about Barack Obama chose black and he's biracial?
I'm like, well, congratulations to the president.
That's his thing.
I go, I think that's fascinating considering his black dad was nowhere to be found, but his white mom and grandma raised him.
But hey, you do you.
I'm going to do me.
That is honest.
It's totally reasonable.
And it's your point of view.
Normally, normally, you know, especially for a biracial woman who had made it in a man's industry, the left would be celebrating you for speaking so openly and taking it, but no, you said the wrong thing, you see.
You're entitled to an opinion just so long as it aligns with their views on race.
That's the problem.
Even you, as a biracial woman, can get slammed, can get criticized, can be called all sorts of terrible things because your views on race only count if they align with theirs.
Somebody, was it, was it, wait a minute, somebody online was calling you Clarence Thomas.
I'm like, okay, that's a compliment.
So I think so.
Right.
If you're trying to insult her, you should try harder.
But that's because, I mean, it happens to him too, right?
Like the views, your skin color doesn't count unless you say all the things that the left wants you to be saying about something as dicey as race.
Barack Obama wrote a book about his black father not being there.
This was not breaking news.
To me, it goes back.
First, can I thank you, Megan, because of the thousands of times that the controversial clip of Obama, that comment by me has run, you are the first person who has ever played the entire thing with the context, which happens to matter, about the view.
This would never have come up.
Barbara Walters, Sherry Shepard, Whoopee Goldberg, Jenny McCarthy, and Sherry and Jenny were great.
Whoopi ended up being quite nice about it after, which is a story in the book when Barbara Walters tried to tackle me in the green room, but it's fine.
Barbara Walters is the one that went nuts and asked me about it live on TV.
This is in 2014.
I said almost the exact same thing in 2014, live on ABC, which happens to be owned also by Disney.
But seven years later, what I said apparently is not okay.
And granted, it's a year and a half after George Floyd, times had changed, but the facts remain the same.
So once again, and I've said this a million times, this is kind of like my attempt at levity, but I'm pretty sure that my white mom was there when I was born.
So you're damn right.
I'm going to identify as white as well as black.
I am so blessed to be loved equally by my white family as well as my black family.
And if anything, you know, people talk about how much I hate myself and I must hate my black father and my black family.
And I'm racist and I'm a sellout and I'm a coon and I'm all the most negative words that you can think of, which it's amazing because most of the hatred comes from people who look like me.
It's okay because it's been my whole life, which is why this is so sensitive.
But I refuse to be quiet about this anymore.
And by the way, no matter what I said, I have that right to feel the way I feel based on my experience.
I'm not talking about statistics and I'm not doing highlights on Sports Center and I'm, oh my gosh, I got the stat wrong.
I pronounced his name wrong.
Get called in the boss's office or get an email because, you know, you factually said something incorrect.
This is my story.
I can feel how I want about my upbringing.
And I am so proud of my family.
And to tell me that it's not okay to have that opinion is wrong.
And the thing is, whenever I have talked about being biracial, and it has been controversial at other times, not to this level, I've had people wait in line for an hour, young biracial kids say thank you, because I get forced to choose.
And it's interesting because you're only pushed to choose one side.
If I had said, I'm a black woman, don't call me biracial, I would have been celebrated.
But because I chose to honor my mother as well.
So the good thing is I don't care anymore because this is my experience.
And if I allow others to continue to take things away from me, then that's on me.
And I refuse.
So I obviously it's an emotional topic because I'm, you get tired of feeling like you're not enough.
And I was celebrated.
I was, oh my gosh, look at that girl.
Do you know how many people, thousands of people through the years have come up and said, wow, you left your hair curly.
You owned your curls.
Most women with curly hair, white or black, are told to straighten it and have like the anchor bob going and look like a traditional.
I have had people at ESPN bosses not only tell me to stop wearing heels because I'm too tall next to the short guys on TV, but to straighten my hair.
And wow, you look so good and so different.
I don't know how to straighten it.
It takes hours.
I don't have time.
I had three kids.
And oh, by the way, this is how God gave me.
Excuse me.
This is how God made me.
I'm okay being me, finally.
So I'm allowed to have an opinion.
I'm allowed to have an opinion about women because I am one and I've been there and I've been through discrimination and every aspect of being a woman in a locker room with coaches and coworkers and bosses who are misogynists.
And I've pushed through it.
I've been there.
I'm allowed to have an opinion on a vaccine mandate that I disagreed with, but did anyway.
And I'm allowed to have an opinion on being a proud biracial woman who is so proud of every aspect of my entire family and my faults, my weaknesses, and my good spots too, what makes me a good human being.
So I'm allowed to feel the way I'm allowed to feel.
And when you try to silence me, I'm done.
I'm done.
If not for me or so many other people who have been silenced because they're a little bit different and don't fit in with the social norm, that is divisiveness.
That is ugliness.
And that is not what America is supposed to be.
As I listen to you, I'm thinking about Glenn Lowry, who came on the show early on.
It was very close to the George Floyd thing after we launched, when we launched.
And I asked him, what is the solution to these divisive messages that are dominating the news these days?
And he said, honestly, we need more biracial marriages and biracial children.
That's the solution.
In the same way that I think the solution to like the Me Too problem is mothers of both boys and girls who want due process for the accused, but also don't want their girls harassed or hurt.
And so I look at you and I say, oh, she's the solution.
Like this person is one of the few chosen who can get us through this mess, who's got like this unique perspective, who we should really be listening to.
But unfortunately, that's not how these others feel, like the people who dominate our media circles, who dominate social media, who have been driving the narrative on this race debate.
As you point out, you know, you can only say, no, I'm black.
That's fine.
Can you imagine if you, they would have been fine if you said I'm black.
Can you imagine if you said I'm white?
They would because I'm exactly 50% of each.
Look at the pictures that you've been showing on the screen for the last several minutes.
Like, I would have been completely celebrated.
I would still be the girl, which is never anything I dreamt of being.
You know, I would still be on the top shows.
I would have been celebrated.
I would have been, I would have been on all those race specials, wouldn't I have?
I would, the ones I wasn't allowed to be on.
I would have been there.
But because I was true to who I am, what is in my blood, that's not okay.
And that's fine because you know what?
It's their loss.
And I am unafraid to now talk because I agree.
Like, I mean, that's what the military was, Megan.
It's just so, I always said it was the most diverse yet sheltered world because everybody, there were so many interracial marriages and we took care of each other because we knew what it was like to move across the world.
It was so beautiful.
And I didn't know about this hatred until I got out of that environment.
So I feel like God has put me here for a reason, not just the way he made me, but here and here now to get out there and have this conversation and to call out the hypocrisy because that is what it is.
Human Rights Under Threat 00:13:22
And until someone has the courage to call it out on a larger platform, this will continue.
And frankly, there are so many people who are afraid to speak up and even ask questions of people of color because they're going to be deemed a racist.
And that we're going backwards.
It feels like my mother and father, it feels like when they were getting married and fighting and to be relevant with their own families in 1970, 71.
This is pathetic and it's inexcusable.
And we have to stop.
And I'm just not, I want to be there.
I want to help because I don't want anyone to ever feel the way that I felt despite being at the top of my profession.
It's time.
And I just, I want to have people talk and own it.
You can't have it both ways.
You can't preach diversity and equity and inclusion and tolerance and then cut people off because they don't believe the way that you say they're supposed to believe because of the color of their skin or their gender.
It is wrong and I'm done.
Done.
So done.
I'm done with you.
So here's where we get to the truly infuriating part.
There was backlash from, you know, these morons online, of course, as we've discussed, but the company, the company did the wrong thing and started to retaliate against you.
And before we get to exactly what they did, and we've got some of it on tape, I just, I have to remind the audience, this is ESPN.
They're one of the wokest, most vocal news organizations when it comes to political viewpoints of any of them.
It's fine to speak out on dicey political or cultural issues at ESPN if you're not named Sage Steele, somebody who is obviously more fair and balanced in her approach to these issues.
That's fine.
And we pulled just a couple of examples just to remind people it was happening all around you.
Anybody could have excused you for not understanding that apparently you're not.
You're not allowed to speak out.
I'll just go through a couple.
All right.
So this is 2017.
Here's Jamelle Hill and her tweet about then President Donald Trump.
Later, she would get suspended because she piled on after this tweet and said a bunch of things.
But here's just one example of Jamel Hill, who was at CNN.
Can we put it on the board so I can see it?
Because I don't actually have it in front of me.
Where she says, Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists.
And then she goes on, right?
He loves black people so much that he pandered to racists by using a flag that unquestionably stands for dehumanizing black people.
You can go on and on.
He's the most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime.
His rise is a direct result of white supremacy, period.
Okay, no problem.
It wasn't until two weeks later where she said something else that ESPN gave her some mild suspension.
Flash forward to George Floyd after George Floyd died in May of 2020.
The number of people who went on the air at ESPN and got political and took strong positions on something as dicey as race, I can't even count.
No problem.
They were celebrated.
We have a little montage of it.
Watch.
Almost didn't come to work tonight because some of the reaction to recent events reminded me that there are several people watching me right now who feel that the color of my skin makes me less worthy of basic human rights and dignity.
And the thought of providing those people with news and entertainment literally made me sick to my stomach.
A lot of people are ticked off.
We should be.
Colin Kaepernick looks pretty good now, doesn't he?
Ali was vindicated by history, and I think Kaepernick is being vindicated too.
We're talking about this in 2020.
It's just, it's unthinkable.
What I'm saying is, as an African-American citizen of this country, how many times is enough?
I'm exhausted and I'm tired.
And the last bit of my patience went out of my body when I watched it go out of George Floyd's.
That's not it.
That's not it.
Look at more recent examples after Ron DeSantis in Florida signs the parental rights bill protecting parents and their right to opine in their children's education and keep them free from sexual indoctrination and gender and orientation and all that.
Here is Laura Gentilli.
No, sorry, we'll get to her in a second.
Here is, do we have Al Duncan?
Yeah, here she is.
We understand the gravity of this legislation and also how it is affecting so many families across this country.
And because of that, our allyship is going to take a front seat.
And with that, we're going to pause in solidarity.
Our LGBTQIA plus teammates at Disney asked for our solidarity and support, including our company's support in opposition to the parental rights and education bill of the state of Florida and similar legislature across the United States.
And a threat to any human rights is a threat to all human rights.
And at this time, Courtney and I, we're going to take a pause from our broadcast to show our love and support.
Oh my God.
All fine.
Not punished.
What Sage said in those three Jay Cutler soundbites, different story.
So how did the backlash manifest against you by the company?
I feel like there's like almost two different conversations there.
I think the difference is quite obvious that I was on a podcast, not on ESPN airwaves on a day off.
To me, it was very different compared to what you just played.
Listen, all I ever wanted was consistency.
And if we are allowing my peers to go on social media, much less on our own airwaves, saying things that are anything, that have nothing to do with sports, that are political, that are not true quite often because the parental rights bill in Florida is not what many people claim that it is.
Most people apparently didn't take the time to read it.
then I should be allowed on my personal time to give my opinion on my experiences personally without telling others what to do or how to feel about being biracial or being forced to take a vaccine.
And I think that's just what breaks my heart is that there were different rules for me than everyone else.
Yeah, there certainly were.
They started to take responsibilities away from you while at the same time forcing you to apologize.
The comment that you put out was as follows, quote, I know my recent comments created controversy for the company and I apologize.
We are in the midst of an extremely challenging time that impacts all of us and it's more critical than ever that we communicate constructively and thoughtfully.
So did they make you do that, Sage?
And how did that feel?
I did not want to apologize.
I fought and I fought and I begged and I screamed and I was told that if I want to keep my job, I have to apologize and I need my job.
And I love my job, Megan.
I loved it.
Loved it.
Every moment on Sports Center, the last two and a half years with my co-host, Matt Berry, and my producers, we have had the best team.
So proud.
I loved it.
But I needed it as well.
And they knew that.
They knew that.
So I apologize.
And I think that I thought that that was going to be the end of it because that's what I was told.
But when it continued and there were events taken away events I'd worked years to get and I was just told, you know, hey, you we need a little more time.
You know, it's interesting.
I think in anything in life, quite often we say, all right, one more time and it's over and I'm done.
Or, you know, to your kid, if you one more time, talk to me like that, then you're grounded.
I knew that there was a line somewhere.
I just didn't know what it was until it was crossed.
And when I lost the rose brain, which just was a big deal.
It was on ABC and it was, it's iconic and special.
That was, that was it.
I just didn't know what I was going to do with that.
I knew that mentally I had checked out and was heartbroken again at the hypocrisy of the rules.
Either the rule is a rule for everybody or nobody, but you can't pick and choose.
And especially if it's just one person, it's just me.
And then they let you hang out to drive because all the news media started to run with, she's been suspended, she's been suspended.
Meanwhile, no one told you you were suspended, but they were happy to see you twist in the wind.
Here's, let me see, Yahoo, Sage Steele suspended from ESBN for her controversial remarks regarding race, COVID vaccine.
Ebony Sage Steele suspended from ESBN after controversial remarks.
Here we go.
Clay Travis, he was repeating another Fox News report, ESBN suspension of Sage Steele.
He called it absolute madness.
He had your back.
And they loved to see all of it.
They were happy to see you twist.
And then now I'm going to get to the woman I referenced, Laura Gentili, ESBN executive vice president of marketing at the opening remarks of ESBN Women, October 2021, which was an event you were supposed to host, correct?
But didn't.
Correct.
Yeah, because of this.
So they start pulling responsibilities away from you.
They publicly embarrass you.
And then this woman gets up there in the spot where you're supposed to be hosting and says the following Saturday.
We have, you know, a stalwart not with us this year in Sage Steel.
You know, she kind of had a, you know, incident and kind of shared some points of view, perhaps in a difficult way, in an unprofessional way.
And so we kind of elected for her to kind of sit this one out.
And she, you know, she apologized to me.
She apologized to Rachel.
But again, like you said, it's a family and she's been a part of the summit for 10 years.
She'll always be a friend of mine.
And so, you know, you keep marching on.
Some friend.
I want to clarify one thing because because of the firestorm, I actually volunteered to step away from the summit that year.
It was all in the middle of it.
I had been told that I was supposed to interview Halle Berry for the upcoming movie she was starring in and directing as well, I think.
And then apparently Halle Berry's team said that they wouldn't come if I were there.
And because of my comments about biracial.
And so I realized that my comments, even though I still stood by them, obviously, that if it were affecting my friends there, that I wanted to step away.
So I stepped away from that.
That's why I say at that moment, a respectful, respectable company would have said, don't be ridiculous.
Then Holly Berry isn't coming.
We stand by you, our loyal employee who's been with us for years now.
You're more important to us.
That's the right thing to do.
And can I, I can relate to this.
I guess I never even thought of that, Megan.
You're right.
But I think I was just trying to let them know that, listen, I was just trying to be myself.
Everyone else is allowed to.
I was just being me.
But if it affects my friends, because I was there from the very first day of ESPNW on the stage hosting, it's a two and a half, three-day summit.
They had my face on the hotel room keys every year.
Like I loved it because it was about uplifting women and bringing us to prominence and fighting to put more WNBI highlights on sports and I fought with my other producers about that.
And so I just didn't want my friends there that we'd worked so hard to make this event great to be suffering because of my words.
So I stepped away.
So when she said, when Laura, who was my friend, said that, I was like, oh, wait, you're saying you elected to have me sit this out?
Oh, I thought I stepped away, which I was embarrassed, but you just announced to the world that it was your decision to basically kick me off it.
The irony of it, that it's a women's summit that is uplifting women.
And for years, I was on that stage saying, hey, we have to have our voices.
We are equal to men.
And it's okay to be diverse.
And as a woman, you stand tall and you be you.
And all of a sudden, the women's summit said, we don't want you because you're not the one that's not.
Not that version of you, but a different version of you, preferably.
Walking Back Controversial Words 00:11:58
Right.
No, the irony is absolutely apparent.
It's rich and it's gross.
It's, it makes my skin crawl.
So, but at this point, and we've talked about this, you know, you and I have talked about it privately and we talked about on the air that there is an extra level of pressure on you when you are the wage earner for your family.
And, you know, it's not that you would have been on the streets if you had lost your job, but a lot of things would have changed dramatically in your life and in your children's life.
And especially you going through a divorce, it's like you want as much stability for your children as possible.
You want to disrupt as little as possible.
And they knew all that.
And they knew your dad was sick and they didn't give a damn.
They didn't give a damn about you or what any of this was doing to you.
That's why they're so disgusting out there trying to care like they act like they care about parents.
How about this parent who's been loyal to your company for a decade now as you throw her under the bus and then back over her multiple times?
They're disgusting.
I'm sorry, but Disney's gross.
And but most of us, even at this point, would have said, I've got to keep my mouth shut the same way I got the needle in the arm.
I got to keep my mouth shut because it's my job.
It's my career.
It's my kids.
It's my home.
It's everything I've worked for that's truly in the balance right now.
And you picked up the phone and called Brian Friedman, who we both love.
He was my lawyer.
who took on NBC.
He was your lawyer who took on ESPN.
And can I just say, and we've talked about this, but the thing about Brian Friedman, yes, he knows how to fight.
He's brilliant.
He's not afraid of these companies.
That's why everybody now is trying to hire him.
But the thing about Brian that people don't know is privately, like his ability to remind you that you're great and you're not the problem.
And, you know, you've been treated wrongly, right?
Like, because I think our instincts, anybody who's a professional who's made it in their industry, your instinct is to blame yourself.
Your instinct is to say, like, I guess I screwed up.
Everybody's telling me I'm terrible.
Maybe I'm really terrible.
And I know he had the heart to heart with you.
Like, it's not you, Sage.
It's not you.
It's them.
And began the fight to get us to where we are now.
Brian Friedman saved me because he did exactly what you described.
And Megan, I had never talked to an attorney really in my life.
I didn't even need an attorney for my divorce.
My God, like I'm the least litigious person.
Like I, you know who called me and said, you have to call Brian?
Chris Harrison.
Chris Harrison.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You had co-host.
Yeah, he was canceled for totally benign comments.
Exactly.
Yeah, he was my co-we co-hosted Miss America together twice and we did a crazy special at a volcano in Nicaragua on ABC.
And then he was canceled in the most disgusting way.
And he called me to tell me about an article that had come out and something that someone had said about me that he had worked with on The Bachelor.
And I, for some reason, that article broke me.
And he just, he's like, listen to me.
You need to call Brian Friedman.
He'll have your back.
At least, at least try.
And I'm like, I'm not calling a lawyer.
I'm just going to, again, you get quiet and you go away and you try to fix it.
And he texted Brian while we were on the phone.
And five minutes later, I got a call from Brian Friedman, the busiest attorney probably in America over the last couple of years.
And he just listened for an hour as I was sobbing like a crazy person.
And he's like, I am so sorry you've been through this.
We need to talk further.
And we did.
Now that's that, but then it's another thing to actually pull the trigger, right?
And file a lawsuit.
And it was so, so, so scary, Megan.
And I sue your own boss.
But that, yeah, I mean, and this, again, I'm going back that 11-year-old girl who had this dream.
And then how many kids get to see their actual dream realized?
And the world gets to see it too.
Like, how does it get to this point where I am living that dream?
And then the dream kind of changes and it doesn't always feel dreamy.
And it's this now.
And I have to make a decision to stand up for myself legally in a legal fashion or just go quiet and beg them to forgive me and hope I get one more contract, which I knew that they weren't going to forgive me at that point.
But it wasn't about that.
It was more about other people.
And I knew that it was like, I don't know, maybe over for me.
But if I don't send a message about being silenced, then I'm gonna have to shut up for the rest of my life.
Then it's on me.
And then, like, get over it.
You cannot complain about something, but then be silent, in my opinion.
At this, now, listen, talk to me 10 years ago, and I would have hidden under this table.
I'm a different person now, and I'm grateful for how I have changed through a ton of adversity.
But Brian, no one forced me to do this to fight back.
I will tell you, I talked to my kids and they've seen a lot of the things through the years and they experienced some of the hate.
And when people online go after your kids and find their social media and threaten to rape them and death threats, look at them.
That was at the Post Malone concert here in Hartford a couple of weeks ago.
I'm a posty.
I love post malone.
We had so much fun.
But like, that's my why, right?
Because if I'm telling them to stand tall and to be strong and I wither away out of fear of not having a paycheck, then I'm a freaking hypocrite, you know?
I had to make a decision.
I knew it would be life-altering.
I thought I could, you know, maybe fix it and maybe we could talk things out.
But, you know, when I told my kids, and then I'll shut up, I know I'm rambling.
I went to my oldest daughter, was at school at college already.
I called her and she's like, okay, what are you doing?
And I'm like, well, it's going to come down tomorrow.
And I talked to my youngest daughter.
She's one that's now 17.
And then I talked to my son.
My son's in the middle of his two awesome, crazy, insane sisters.
And he always is quite observant.
He doesn't say too much.
And I went downstairs and I said, buddy, I got to talk to you.
I said, you know what's been going on.
And I need to tell you that tomorrow there's going to be some news because I'm filing a lawsuit about what happened and being silenced.
And I just need you to know.
And I don't need you to defend me ever, ever, but I need you to know what's coming potentially.
And my son stopped what he was doing and he looked at me and he said, it's about time you stood up for yourself, mom.
And I just knew that I was doing the right thing because my Nicholas doesn't say that much, you know.
And for him to say that, and he looked me in the eye when he said it.
And granted, he's 6'4, he looked down at me.
But I was like, okay, sometimes you think your kids just think you're annoying and crazy, especially when you have a mom in the public eye.
And as your kids get older, you know, it's a thing.
But he said, it's okay.
I want you to fight.
I want you to stand up for yourself.
And so I feel like my kids have pushed me to fight back, even though it's affected them.
And I worry because they don't always like my job because of this.
Sometimes they just want a normal mom who doesn't get, you know, in trouble for being herself.
It's too late.
I can relate.
It's too late.
Sorry.
This is how you're, how God, the hand God dealt you.
Yeah.
And by the way, their life is really good.
And they know that with the blessings, there's other another side to it.
And they need to know that.
That's how life is.
This is a blessing.
And there's another side.
And it's important to feel that too.
Yeah.
I wrote about this, I think, in my book, but one time Doug and I were at an interview for our son's application to one of these New York City snooty private schools.
And I was just like a bull in a China shop.
You know, I was just saying the wrong thing and then two wrong things and then three wrong things.
And it was just, I just kept bucking and breaking China.
And we're walking out and Doug's like, honey, what went on in there?
And I was like, you know, I got to be me.
And he goes, you think you could be like 90% of you someday?
Like, but nope, you got the full 100%.
Enjoy.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
All right, stand by, stand by.
We're going to squeeze in our last break and we will come back with Sage Steel.
Straight ahead.
So I don't want to skip past what this does to you, you know, when all of your colleagues, because your colleagues piled on too.
I mean, yeah, they go through them all, but they piled on.
There weren't a bunch of people saying, I got your back.
Hello.
I can relate.
I can relate.
So your colleagues are piling on you.
The social media mob is piling on you.
And then your company, rather than having your back, tries to publicly embarrass you.
And in the lawsuit, you alleged that the distress was severe enough, it could result in illness or bodily harm.
I understand that.
So what did that mean?
And what were you going through?
The reason I wanted to talk to you is because I know you understand it.
And I hate that you understand it.
I didn't know you.
I just witnessed what you went through.
And it just broke my heart from a distance.
You know, I just don't understand where we are today and why.
I think because there were so many of my friends or people that I thought were my friends who were public about it, public about how they felt about my comments.
You have my cell phone.
We've hung out.
We've talked.
We've worked together for years.
Just again, people are afraid to have a conversation.
And I just didn't understand that.
And by the way, you can hate me now because of my decision to say that I'm biracial versus black.
You can, or white.
And by the way, if I'm referred to as black, I'm totally fine with it.
I'm just saying if I'm, I mean, it's, it's, I love, I love who I am, but if I'm being told to put in writing somewhere, then I'm going to say what I am.
And if you hate me because of that, then you have that right.
If you hate me because of the other comments, you have that right.
And I respect that.
I just was devastated that it was allowed to happen in that way.
That my company allowed it to be public when they had not allowed that for other people in the past, when other colleagues, other people had been criticized.
We called it, you know, ESPN on ESPN crime.
There were repercussions.
So why were there none when it happened to me?
And I think I was mad, but more than anything, I was just devastated because I had been such a good soldier, such a good employee for so many years and proud of it, right?
So I just didn't understand that.
And that took a toll.
And then I was, I was scared to go back to work, Megan, when I got off of my suspension.
I was so scared because I thought I'd been made to believe that everybody hated me.
Feeling Protected by Family 00:05:01
And to walk back in there, and you don't just walk back and work.
Like you walk back on and you have to perform on live national television in front of millions of people.
I think that that's so that's the distress part, right?
And there's a lot more to it that I won't bore you with now.
I think though that that's what I'm most proud of, Megan, is that I was able to compartmentalize much better than I ever dreamt.
And to have this ongoing for 22 months from the beginning, from when I was first punished to Monday, I went back in there and I stood tall and had great conversations with producers and was passionate about every single interview, every single segment.
Can ask them, like, it's just what I have done my whole life.
Why am I going to stop just because there's this other crap going on as wrong as it might be?
But I walked in there every day and I did it.
And I, and I hadn't thought of it.
And Brian Friedman's like, Do you realize what you're doing?
And that you are suing your company, one of the biggest companies in the planet, while you're still on their airwaves.
And I was like, oh, you're right.
I mean, I just, I just go back to work because that's what you do.
And because I wanted to work and I love my job, but I was so scared to go back.
And I'll say this: my parents, again, saved their kid.
They came here when I was suspended, which I also then happened to get COVID really bad.
Ironically, three weeks after I got the vaccine that was so perfect to prevent me from getting COVID, disgrace, I was really sick and couldn't leave the house for eight days.
And I was alone.
My kids went to their dad's house because he couldn't be around me.
And I'd never been more.
It was the low point in my life for sure when I was suspended.
I was attacked by everybody on the internet.
All of not all, too many of my peers at work couldn't see my kids and thought that my whole life was over.
And my parents came to Connecticut.
They lived in Pennsylvania at the time.
And my dad, with his cancer, did not need to be around someone who was sick.
It was risky.
And he did it.
And my parents came and they lifted me off the ground.
And they were here when I went back to work that day.
And before I left the house, because I was shaking, my mom and dad pulled me aside.
And one of my best friends, Tiffany, who's my makeup artist, and so much more than that, the best human I know, my dad's like, huddle up because he's a football player.
Till the day he dies, he's a football player.
Huddle up, guys.
And as I'm walking out the door, he's like, We're saying a prayer.
And it was St. Michael the Archangel.
And if you're Catholic, you know what that is.
We say it at the end of Mass.
And it's basically about protecting me from evil.
And I walked, yeah.
And look it up for those of you who haven't heard or said the prayer.
It's pretty powerful.
It is.
To protect you from bad and ugly.
And I believe evil is too much of a relevant word in our society right now.
And so we said our prayer and we hugged.
And I went to work and I went on the air.
And he texted me in the first commercial break.
He's like, that's my girl.
You got this.
And every single day from that moment on, which I believe was like October 18th, 2021, until the last day I went on air recently, I called my parents as I pulled in to ESPN and we said the prayer together every single day for almost two years.
And so I knew that I would be okay.
I did feel protected by God, by my mommy and my dad.
And at 50, I still needed my parents, right?
And my friends and so many people that I continued to hear from from around the world, and even people at work who would pull me aside and whisper in the bathroom or in a corner, making sure there were no microphones around and saying, thank you.
Thank you for standing up and for saying what I can't say.
Please don't go quiet.
Don't go silent again.
And so that's what pulled me through.
Those people, my very small circle of friends who I now know are real friends, my family and God.
We pulled up the prayer.
This is actually the second time I've read this prayer on the air because we had Father Mike on of the Bible in a year.
And I was telling him that we say it at my church in Connecticut.
And it goes as follows: Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.
And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
That's a great reminder of the stakes of the battle you were in.
Free Speech in Sports Media 00:15:21
And ultimately, Sage, you did win.
You were protected.
They settled the case this week.
They did not take it to trial.
They couldn't.
There's a special law in Connecticut.
Hello, Keith Alberman, that gives employees the right to speak their minds while not in the workplace on their opinions and to not to have the right not to be fired for it.
And ESPN should know that since they're in Connecticut.
I have to pause and note the irony of Disney.
This is the company that you're doing battle with, Disney, who right now is doing battle with Ron DeSantis in Florida, claiming it is wrong to have Ron DeSantis, the government, retaliate against a private company for exercising its free speech rights, that it's wrong to retaliate against someone for exercising their free speech rights.
That's Disney's position in that lawsuit.
In your lawsuit, it was a very different situation.
They were the ones doing the retaliating and they were less of the free speech champions they would have the rest of us believe they are, Sage.
I mean, this is not a point that could have been lost on you.
No, not at all, especially as a part-time resident of the state of Florida.
And I, you know, there was an article written in Variety that I was just so pleasantly surprised, I guess, that the writer is very well respected.
But I think I'm just surprised in general, because with the press and how it has worked with my situation since it all went down, there's very few people who really go through all the facts and then write a story based on facts, God forbid.
And that Variety article did just bad and pointed out that hypocrisy.
And yeah, you know how you're an attorney.
You know, I can't say too much, but I, it was not lost on me.
And again, I've just been, I'm just sad because it didn't have to be this way.
You know, if we just have rules that are consistent, regardless of the person, regardless of their opinions or what they say, then we don't have an issue here.
It's worth it.
Well, that's why you're lucky you live in Connecticut.
That's why you love it because Connecticut gives an additional layer of protection for employees, saying that an employer may not fire or suspend or discipline an employee for exercising her free speech rights when it doesn't happen at the office, basically, when she's out on her own offering her opinion.
Thank God.
Thank God you live in Connecticut.
And that's why that's one of the chief reasons why you were able to claim that this was being done to you very wrongfully.
All the states needed this.
There should be an extra layer, especially in today's cancel culture world, of protection for people who want to speak their minds.
I have been in Connecticut since 2007.
This situation is the first time I've ever said, thank God I live in Connecticut.
No offense.
But I'm a wimp and I like warm weather and sunshine in lower Texas.
So that's why, hence Florida, here I come at some point, not in the very near future.
I still have one daughter at the senior in high school and she's the priority.
But I learned a lot.
I could never, even if I wanted to be an attorney, I could never have, it would have been a waste of everyone's time for me to try to go to law school.
So thank God for people like you and Brian Friedman who understand all that stuff.
When I found out about that, it was certainly like, oh, okay.
I just get tight almost thinking about having to make the decision in the first place.
But I do believe it's all for a reason, Megan.
And I know people are like, you hate, people hate it when you say that.
But for me, I just, I haven't, I haven't questioned that much.
Aside from the initial drama where it's like, wait, you're doing what?
You're kicking me off the air.
Like, what?
I've just had to rely.
Like, if we preach about having faith, like these are the ultimate tests.
And that is to continue to take that step forward, even though you might not know where that road's going to lead.
And I have no idea.
I didn't know where it was going to lead with the lawsuit.
I had no clue.
It's very hard.
It's hard enough to find a TV job, never mind, as a 50-year-old woman in television.
I mean, usually at this point in our lives, they're putting us out to pasture in this industry.
And right?
They like never to be seen again.
So that's not going to happen to you.
It didn't happen to me.
I will make sure it doesn't happen to you.
But that's, I'm sure ESPN would love to see that.
They would love to see you exit stage left, never to be seen again.
And they would love for you to continue being silenced and not using your free speech rights.
So, I mean, how now that it's done, are you, by the way, how are you able to talk about it?
Did they not make you sign a non-disclosure, non-disparagement?
Yeah, I can't.
I can't.
I mean, I'm doing what I'm allowed to do, you know?
But saying as much as you're allowed.
Sure.
Yes.
They're not going to sue you.
Let's be real.
It's like, good luck.
They don't want to do Brian anymore.
Brian, my goodness.
Yeah.
I mean, he's a very busy man these days.
You know, I think I'll say this too.
I just, what I hope comes from it is, you know, maybe a smaller level.
Like, again, I just wanted people to own the rules, you know?
And it's like any form of parenting.
If you're not consistent with it, then your kids aren't going to comply.
Like, I really thought I was complying, and apparently I wasn't.
That's why I'm not.
Did you ever hear the saying, what you permit, you promote?
Yes.
They permitted, I'll just call out a couple.
Fellow sports center anchor Nicole Briscoe to pile on you.
She retweeted a post from someone who said that they hoped ESPN would no longer use you to cover women's sporting events.
And she retweeted it saying, Amen, even if it gets me in trouble.
Amen.
Screw you, Nicole Briscoe.
Then there was Ryan Clark, ESPN NFL analyst, who refused to appear on the air with you because of those comments to Jay Cutler, asking ESPN to replace you with your co-host for the segment.
That was a bridge too far, even for ESPN.
And then the guy said, I'm not doing the show.
And ESPN did not impose any penalty on him whatsoever.
It's just fine.
Kick her when she's down.
Go for it.
It'll be fun.
So those people deserve to be called out.
Even though you say, as there was at Fox, there's a pretty strong no shooting inside the tent rule.
And if you do, it'll be called out and punished internally.
Exactly.
And then when I brought it up, it was like, oh, we'll take care of it.
And then, you know, that tweet remained on her account for months.
So it's just, again, it's just about being consistent.
And I will say this too.
I think one of the more disappointing things in general with anybody is you can take a snippet from, you know, an 18-second clip that was being circled around with particularly the Obama comments, or you can take a headline off of any website or any tweet, and you can go with that and be like, oh my gosh, what did she say?
Done, cancel out.
Or you can actually listen and listen for the full context.
And like I said earlier, you're the first person to show the full context of the Obama comments because it was something that Barbara Walters brought up to me.
And there are many people within the building, including decision makers at the highest levels, who admitted to me that they did not listen to the podcast.
And I think that broke me too, because I'm like, just listen and then let's talk.
Because you know me as a person for, as I leave the company, 16 and a half years I was there.
But that may have been part of the problem.
That may have been part of the problem stage because I know earlier you had spoken out about some of the protests against the anthem, you know, the kneeling, and you didn't like it.
And of course, now we know why you didn't like it.
You're, you know, you're a loving patriotic American who's the daughter of a colonel in the army and you didn't like the kneeling.
Neither did I. Neither did half of America.
But there was blowback on you back then.
So I, them knowing you may have been part of the problem, right?
Like they, you'd already declared yourself as, you know, not on board with their politics.
True, true, but they knew it.
And again, though, I, it's, wait, diversity, right?
To me, it begins and ends with diversity of thought.
And I don't want to hear you talking about any other kind of diversity in D and D E.
Now, corporately, it's DEI and new initials and plus signs, just like LGBTQ, IA plus XYZ.
I cannot keep up.
But don't talk to me about the DEI stuff if you're not going to begin with diversity of thought.
That's where it begins and ends.
So I thought that that's, well, it is a lie.
It's corporate BS and people just trying to cover their butt.
I actually believe that there's several people and millions of people throughout corporate America in any industry who actually don't agree with this stuff, don't agree with what's going on with the trans athletes right now.
They don't agree with it, but they're doing it out of fear.
And again, I call BS on it.
Like if you are a true leader, lead.
But that's one thing.
Doesn't ESPN call any of that out?
Like the trans stuff, the guys participating in women's sports?
Does anybody at ESPN take a stand on that?
I have been saying since the like the Leah Thomas thing came out last year, I was like, we need to be doing this story.
We need to be doing a story.
We need to do the story.
This is a big deal.
This is a big deal.
So listen, at some point, what I've really had to learn is to pick and choose my battles.
Obviously, I've picked some big ones, okay?
But there's others where journalistically, we are what we are.
And there's certain things that I know that we're not going to report or maybe report the way that I would want, which I, you know, I, both sides.
Like, I think that that's crucial.
I don't care what the topic.
I don't care if it's just post-game conversation.
I'm not crazy about that.
Because like you, most of the people over there, as far as, and as you know, I only like skim past ESPN on my way to like bravo.
But most of the guys over, it's like these big guys who are athletes and the NFL or the NBA.
They know damn well that men should not be participating in women's sports.
They know it.
They've got to be on our side.
Of course they know.
And especially because so many of them have children, have daughters who are in those arenas, on those courts, on those fields.
And I know damn well, and I'm not going to name names, but they know who they are.
There's no way they would allow their daughters to be on a field with boys, especially as you get older, as you're a teenager.
Are you kidding me?
And everyone, everyone knows it.
But that's kind of the part that does make me rage a little bit.
Because again, all of these women who you played the clip earlier and standing up for women and like the ESPNW stuff, all of it, all these women who are pushing us, but then are silent with this issue.
This isn't even controversial.
This is stupid that it's even a topic with trans biological men trying to play sports with women.
You talk about science.
Gosh, that's, I've gotten so sick of that science word over the last couple of years with the pandemic, and now we're going to ignore it.
I'm done.
Like, it is a load of crap.
And honestly, I don't even talk about it as much now because it's just comical to me.
And to anyone who asks and goes on and on about it, I'm like, listen, if this were going both ways, we have a conversation.
The fact that it's only going one way is proof.
There are no women trying to go play in the NBA or the NFL or college football aside from a kicker here or there, which is beautiful to see.
That's a different position.
Football players joke around and are like, okay, there's football players and then there's kickers.
And you know what?
I love seeing women out there doing that.
That is different from lacrosse, from anything.
And you know what?
Let's continue to celebrate us, not go backwards, which is exactly what we're doing.
I don't know why the entire media core, sports media, is silent about this.
And I knew exactly sports media, I think, has a special obligation.
It's one thing for me as a news anchor speak out, but it's the sports anchors.
I've seen you and Sam Ponder over at ESPN on Twitter speaking out for women.
And that's all I've seen.
I haven't seen any of these other folks at ESPN say anything.
It's like, this is your lane.
And I respect Joe Rogan for saying, you know, because he's MMA, like he's big into the fighting world.
And he's been saying, now you're in my lane.
Like now that you want a dude to come over and like fight against women or whatever.
Now you're in my lane and I'm going to speak out about it.
That's how the ESPN anchors should see this too.
The fact that they're all silent disgusts me, especially because of how vocal they were about, let's say, the overturning of Roe versus Wade, right?
And women's rights.
And they were, I mean, hello, there were people on our airwaves talking about that.
This is, and this, this is just, this isn't even controversial.
This is science.
And from sports, abortion is not sports.
Thank you.
That's what I mean.
Like, there's just so much that doesn't make sense.
So, you know, again, I'll say this.
You know, I began speaking out about the trans thing probably, you know, on Twitter, social media with the Riley Gaines thing.
And I've become friends with Riley.
And what a special, strong, brilliant young woman.
Like, wow, right.
I mean, what is she?
23, 24.
Hello, me at 23, 24.
No, we're going to never be able to do it.
But I knew that when I did it the first time, I knew, I knew that it was going to get ugly.
And I, but I was willing to die on that hill.
I mean, hell, I'd already been canceled 64 times.
It's fine, right?
Because it matters.
My girls are older now.
They're not playing competitive sports in high school or college.
But I have a 13-year-old niece who's in softball and volleyball.
And you know all about volleyball and stuff that's gone quite public about it.
I am not, she's in Baltimore.
I will walk my butt down there and go into school board meetings or whatever it is, all the travel teams and coaches.
And if that is ever an issue, and more importantly, her parents will.
But I feel obligated with my platform, whatever that looks like right now, but as a sportscaster for 28 years to talk about this openly and stop ignoring it.
So I knew it would be controversial.
Sam and I have been friends for years.
You know, we talked before she decided to go public with it a couple months later too.
And she's brilliant, by the way.
You would love her.
And she's so strong.
She's incredible.
She's literally brilliant and passionate and a strong woman of faith.
And just she's incredible.
Women Facing Systemic Barriers 00:06:00
And we're sad.
We're like, where is everybody?
All these women that are supposed to be so supportive of other women in this case.
Yes.
Where's the cavalry?
Where are they?
Where are they?
I'll say is I understand why people, listen, I am like a poster child for why people stay silent.
And I get that fear, but this is the one issue, one of very few, I guess, that are relevant today that I feel like if we came together as women, just in the media, just sports broadcasters, female, this would go away.
Like we are giving away our power with it.
And to me, I'm like, we are going to regret this.
All I know is I'm trying and Sam's trying and a couple of other people.
You will.
And these others won't.
And excuse me.
You have a daughter.
So my daughter is 12.
If she shows up at a soccer game and there is a boy on the other team, we're out of there.
There's zero chance I will let her play.
I don't care who I offend.
I mean, I think I've made that clear.
But there's no way.
And I recommend other parents do the same thing because your kid actually could get hurt.
By the way, my star producers, they did cut the ESPN anchors L Duncan and Malika Andrews talking about Roe versus Wade.
Here it is.
Literally any content with a girl in it, girl dad, but strip girls of their constitutional rights.
Silence.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.
In less than 24 hours, we celebrated equal rights for women, and now we react to women's reproductive rights being taken away.
Oh my God, she's holding back tears.
Where's her tearful diatribe for my daughter and the daughters of America right now who are getting hurt when playing against biological voice?
Why are they crying about abortion on the set at ESPN Sage?
I don't know.
I don't know, but I mean it.
I feel like if we only came together on this, we could end it.
We are so powerful when we want to be and we're choosing the wrong time to be silent.
No, instead, we see this person, who is it?
Andre and Ann Andre, 40-year-old biological male, who just, you gotta laugh because it's comical, who just won in Canada the women's, it's called the Western Canadian Championship, where he lifted 400 pounds more than the actual woman who came in second, who's secretly the champion because this is a man who won the women's event.
So they won.
Look at this.
This is a 400-pound addition to what any woman out there was able to do.
Why?
Because it's a man.
It's a biological man.
And oh, you'll be super thrilled to learn that Anne Andre set a new Canadian women's national record.
They're giving this guy the women's record.
And guess what?
Ann isn't sorry at all.
This is Anne responding to some of the backlash against him for stealing our title.
I think it's, well, it's either SOT 6 or 7.
Yeah, go ahead.
Quick little note.
There's a whole bunch of people going, oh, well, you got 200 kilograms against your nearest competitor.
Well, like, yeah, because I'm in here training five days a week for three hours a day on average, and my next closest competitor doesn't because she has a life.
Anyways, shockingly, if you look at, say, Brit and Mac, who are both insanely better than me, they also dramatically outdistance me because their training is better.
It's almost as if people have different aptitudes, abilities, and dedications.
Maybe that matters.
Whatever.
I had to see that.
And that is not a flattering angle.
Just going to tell you.
I know.
Keep it talk.
You don't need a full body shot, Anne.
No one wants to see that.
Oh, no.
We have to, it's laugh or cry, Sage.
This is what our girls are up against.
Did you see what Dave Chappelle said?
In his comedy routine?
Yeah, one of the, I mean, hello, I think he's hysterical.
But based, by the way, how you saw Megan Rapino looping me and David Chappelle and Martina Navartalova into, because our stance on preserving women's sports is inciting violence in the trans community.
That was, that was cute, Megan.
And I know how cute you love her.
But when Dave Chappelle came on, it's a long time ago and he's like, okay, let's just flip this then.
When LeBron James says, I'm a woman today, and I'm going to go play in the WNBA, where he's going to proceed to score 856 points a night.
Is that going to be okay with you ladies?
Like, what's the line here?
And when is enough enough?
Right.
No, we need, I've been saying this for a while and I really believe it.
You're the sports person.
We need a man to go into women's professional tennis.
That's where the women become superstars and millionaires and we celebrate the ladies, you know, from Serena Williams to Naomi Osaka to Coco Goff.
Let's let those ladies who are like the creme de la creme in the tennis world start losing to dudes.
Confronting Barbara Walters 00:02:08
And then let's force the woesters to really, that's where, you know, the, what is that?
Rubber hits the road.
Let's see who they choose.
Is it going to be the women who have their own space?
Or is it going to be the men who you've been propping up because they call themselves women, even though they're not?
You know what this is exactly like?
And this just hit me.
It's all the people who are fine with open borders.
Fine.
Let everybody come in until I bust them up to Martha's Vineyard.
And then, oh, like, can't have it both ways, guys.
No.
Cannot have it.
I love that the Martha's Vineyards residents were like, they're doing wonderfully.
It worked out brilliantly.
Oh, great.
You know how many bus loads we have for you?
That's, I'm so happy you're happy.
This is perfect.
We found their new home.
Everybody wins.
Wait, I've got to backtrack because if I don't ask you about Barbara Walters, she attacked you.
Wait, what?
What happened?
What?
It was right after that segment with the Obama segment.
And went in the back.
And so they used to, I don't know, I have not and will not watch that ever again.
It's been years since I was last on, the last time I watched it.
And so Sherry and Jenny went on to do the next segment.
And so it was Barbara, Whoopi, and myself in the dark green room off the side.
I know you've been there.
And I was just standing there.
I was getting a little cup of water.
And it was, I was probably about four feet from the wall in the trash can.
And Barbara was standing over here in front of me.
And she just started to back up towards me and looked at me and got close and elbowed me and pushed me back into the wall in the trash can.
I was like, I won't tell you what I said actually, because I'm trying, you know, I have the sign that says, I love Jesus, but I cuss sometimes.
And I do cuss sometimes and I really love Jesus.
I'm trying not to do today because I know my mom's going to watch this, but I was like, what did this just do to me?
Like this 140-year-old woman just tried to like tackle me.
Like, what am I?
Redefining Feminist Roles 00:11:45
What is what is happening right now?
And some of the producers saw it, Whoopee saw it.
And Whoopee was like, come here.
And she was great.
And she pulled me aside in her little area and she's like, don't you let her do it.
And I'm like, am I in a movie right now?
A legend, one of the legends in this industry just tried to beat me up.
Like, what is happening?
Because of my biracial?
I was like, I need a camera right now because no one will believe that Barbara Walters went like that.
And I can't.
Can't make it up.
Oh my God.
It hit me.
Like it made contact.
She didn't say like, oh, excuse me.
That was by accident.
Oh, she glared at me.
Unbelievable and yet totally believable.
Yet, totally believable.
You know, I, I, she had the daughter.
She adopted the daughter.
According to her own memoir, she proceeded to then ignore the daughter for the daughter's entire life and thought that she was a good mother because she sat the daughter in front of the TV camera lens when she was in Cuba with Castro and elsewhere and kind of then couldn't understand why the daughter kept having behavioral problems.
It's like, there's no mother.
They're parents.
Children need to parents.
And that is a struggle.
Like I know, you know, you mentioned your three children.
I've got three children too.
Can I just ask you about something that's been on my mind lately?
Because people can hear you're not some like, I am feminist, Jeremy Roar, but yet you are the primary wage earner, the only wage earner.
And, but I am kind of disturbed at the amount of like weird comments we're getting now on the right about how it's like women need to go back home and be in the kitchen.
Like women need to understand the only thing that's really going to make a man happy is to have a woman at home taking care of him in the bedroom, in the kitchen, fulfilling sort of more traditional female roles.
Sage, can I tell you, it's really like getting under my skin and like completely railing on feminism.
And I understand where I don't call myself a feminist, but that's not to say that the feminist movement didn't make any real progress for women in creating professional pathways that you and I were able to take advantage of.
Like, why, why, why do we have to overcorrect everything?
Right.
It's like, now we have to go back to shaming women who are in the professional world because somehow we're less than when it comes to our, you know, like there's like the Barbara Walters, she went too far, I think, in abandoning those roles.
But like, you're an example of how it can be done.
Your kids seem to be doing great.
My kids are doing great.
I don't know.
Just interesting your thoughts on it.
Yeah, it's so, it is so disturbing.
And I, listen, I've, I've struggled my entire since I became a mother in 2002 because family's everything.
And I wanted to be there for every single, you don't want to miss anything for your kids, right?
But I knew that with my husband having chosen to stay home with the kids for the first few years was how it began.
Like it was, it was on me.
And I was sad at times that I wasn't able to fulfill some of those traditional roles that I really wanted to do while going off to be a professional and fulfill my dream because I believe we can do both.
Hello, you and I have proven that we can do both.
But sometimes the support or lack of came from other women.
I remember one of my neighborhoods, we lived in another part of Connecticut.
I was one of like three working moms in probably a neighborhood of like 150 homes.
And one of the women in the neighborhood was the president of the PTO for the local elementary school.
And she wrote an email and, you know, the whole thing of meant to send it to one person, but send it to the whole neighborhood and talked about, you know, if those working moms, the three of us really, really cared about their kids, they would be there for the Christmas play, the holiday play.
Oh, wow.
And I remember being like devastated because I was already judging myself enough as a young woman to have another woman do that and then other women piling on.
And so I'm very sensitive to it and very sensitive to that draw and that pull, but you have proven better than anyone that I know.
And I haven't met your husband or your kids or been to your home, but like you've made it very clear your priorities.
And oh, by the way, how supportive you are of your husband, right?
And his career and what he has done in the past and currently.
I just think both can exist.
Why do we have to choose?
Why does it have to be one or the other?
Like I plan to continue my career.
This is my dream as a little girl.
And one way or another, I'm going to keep this going.
I don't know what it's going to look like, but I'm going to do it.
And I also, you know, hope to once again find true love and be very supportive of a man.
And I love to make for him when I can.
And if he needs me to pick up something, I want to do it.
Because guess what?
I'm not going to settle for a man who's not going to do the same damn thing for me.
Like, I just think both can exist.
And why we're doing this is very confusing.
None of this crap makes sense anymore.
Sometimes it feels like it's Twilight Zone.
No, see, this is, I so identify with everything you said.
This is one of the reasons I think that we were drawn to each other right from the get-go is you don't like, you don't have to be one of these crazy feminists like the Snow White actress who's like, there will be no prince.
We're abandoning the true love story.
It's all about leadership.
You don't have to go that far.
And you don't have to go over the other way where it's like you're Barbara Walters and you ignore your child her whole life.
Like there, there are millions of us who have chosen a hybrid model and it's working.
You know, it's like where we're like we're managing to be good moms and yet pursue careers without judging the people who choose, you know, to be stay-at home moms or without who choose not to be moms at all.
Like you, the extremes online try to shame both sides.
And I just think it's bullshit.
If you want to be a stay-at-home mom, that's awesome.
You should lean into it.
You should love it.
If you want to be a stay-at-home wife, lean into it and love it.
It sounds many times I look at that and I'm thinking I think I made the wrong life choices.
It looks damn good.
I know.
The same is also true for the women who decide to prioritize their careers and crush it.
Now, if you have children, you do have to take care of them.
You know, Dr. Laura is right about that.
Like you can't just then abandon your child to like all caregivers all the time.
But I just, I think it's important to remind young women today, there are millions of us who have chosen a hybrid and you can make it work.
You absolutely can.
And you are proof of that.
And I think that it's actually beautiful because your kids and my kids have obviously witnessed it too.
Like you're teaching them so much by going out there and being the best in this industry at what you do, period, for decades on many different levels and platforms.
Like Megan Kelly is, there's nobody else, right?
Who is you and can't even, as we say in sports, they can't even hold my jack.
Like you, no one can touch you.
Sorry, that's vulgar.
You're doing that.
And they're seeing a strong, badass woman who's fulfilling her dream while then coming home and not just taking care of them, but being loving to her husband as well.
So you are giving your kids, I think, with kids a decade plus older than yours, priceless lessons and that all can exist.
And you don't have to choose.
If you want to choose one, fine.
I would hope to your point that you're not saying, okay, nice to meet you, kiddos.
I'm going off to work for the next decade.
Good luck.
Like, but, but they're seeing strength in us and they're seeing empathy in us.
And I think some of those traditional roles are very important to uphold, at least in my home.
Not old school, like, you know, with an apron on every day and wearing it.
Like, no, come on, let's be realistic.
That's not what hopefully most of them are encouraging.
But to show them both is a blessing.
And I know that I'm raising really strong girls and a really strong son, too.
Because that story you told about him pulling you aside is amazing.
Men, what's that?
That story you told about your son pulling you aside, saying it's about damn time you started taking care of yourself.
Oh, you did something right there.
Well, we question every day, right?
And I have two in college.
By the way, they're at High Point University in North Carolina, which is incredible and very patriotic and never once forced a mandate.
One of the few universities that never forced a mandate gave us parents' choices.
They're together.
My kids are like best friends, boy, girl.
They're taking care of an incredible university.
And then my daughter here.
And let me tell you, every day, and you know, I feel like, okay, I have screwed this up.
I screwed that up.
I'm sorry.
I apologize to my kids.
I disciplined my kids, but I'm still asking questions every day.
And it's the hardest job ever, but it's the most important, obviously, job ever.
And you never get, you never get the grade.
You know, you don't get like the A plus delivered to you.
I mean, I would say, like, if you're the Menendez family, it's the ultimate F in parenting when your kids actually wind up murdering you.
That's an F.
But so our dark humor.
That didn't work out so well.
Yeah, the rest of us had to kind of wonder, like, oh, am I doing damage right now?
But I will say this: my kids, they're pains in the ass sometimes.
And recently, I'm in wearing grievous.
I'm like, what did you just say to me?
We're in Greece.
Shut it.
Like, just be grateful, you know?
And I always say, I mock it and I kid, but sometimes I don't.
I'm like, listen to me.
When I'm dead, you're going to realize how cool I was.
So just back off.
That's good.
That's really dropping it on them.
I always say to my kids, like, whenever they say something that's not grateful, you know, like, I'll, whatever, I'll have made a dinner, which I feel is a true gift if I really work on it because I hate doing it.
I'm not good at it.
And then they don't usually complain, but if they offered a complaint, I would say, I say this every time.
I think the words you're looking for are, and they know to now fill in.
Thank you.
That's all about politics.
I think the words you're looking for are, and they do it.
Okay, now wait.
I wanted to ask another question about this whole saga.
Did Jay Cutler ever talk to you?
Have you ever rounded back with him?
They ran like the wind.
No, I thought that was going to land differently.
Yeah.
At first, at first, we started to get these emails like, hey, would you sign this real quick?
Like, they were afraid that I was going to sue them.
And I was like, number one, I'm not signing anything.
Stop it.
Number two, I own everything I said.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Don't worry.
This is Jay Cutler.
Hey, for a quarterback, not bad interviewing skills.
You know, he asked for the right made some news.
His, yeah, his research.
By the way, his podcast is long gone.
I don't know if I scared him or if the ratings just went south after I blew it all up.
But he's not podcasting anymore.
I think he's out hunting somewhere in Tennessee.
I just, they were afraid of the bathroom.
No.
He never reached out to you.
The funny, no, no, no, no.
I um, no, no, he did.
He did.
I'm sorry.
Let me take that back.
He did on social media.
He DM'd me once and he's like, this is BS.
You know, this is ridiculous.
And then he retweeted something and it BS out.
We never had a one-on-one conversation.
I did finally meet him last June at a NASCAR event in Nashville.
And I was like, went up to him like, Jay Cutler, great to meet you.
Growing Stronger Through Pain 00:07:50
My life has changed a lot.
But this is 100% not on Jay.
I'm glad that I remembered.
He did.
He did reach out.
It was never too in-depth because I think that they probably were just like, stay away from her.
And he's in the sports world, right?
He's in the sports world, which means like that it's, it's, I can relate to this in a way because it's like if Fox News turns on you in my field, like then conservatives are wondering whether you're toxic or you're somebody they can talk to or or Trump, Trump, that, you know, I went through that too.
And then, so I can see like, if you're taking on ESPN, everybody who's beholden the ESPN has to wonder whether you're an okay person to talk to.
That's all.
Oh, it is.
Yeah, obviously not just from, you know, one of my peers who chose not to come on the air with me.
But no, it happened when I was doing a streaming show and something else with ESPN.
And there were people who I had been friends with who just wouldn't really answer a request.
And again, I try to put myself in their shoes.
I've got to put myself in everybody's shoes, Megan.
And I don't.
I say you're bad people.
I mean, I do.
Like, I feel that way.
I'm more hurt by it because they know my character and are now running away.
And it's like, oh, gosh.
And there are some of them.
Okay, so they know, but they know your character, but you didn't know their character, but now you do.
That's why I'm grateful for this.
And I literally wouldn't change the scene because so many people have shown their true colors and some of them aren't negative.
Some of them just can't handle it and can't handle being around people who are stronger.
A lot of the women that I work with, it's like, I know, I should say, well, you know, and tell Sage this and that.
It's like, it's just okay.
My circle is tight and small.
And I'm so freaking grateful for them.
And I'm grateful that this has forced me to really learn about myself and that I'm a hell of a lot stronger than I thought.
The stab wounds in my back are so deep.
Like, and I've been canceled, I don't know how many times, but somehow I'm still here and I'm still standing.
And I just truly think that there's so many positives that have come from this.
Honestly, like it's been brutal.
And I've been, I have been devastated, even the last couple of days, devastated, even though I knew it was coming because you put your life into things.
And then all of a sudden, by it's gone.
But but the, I gained so much and I worked with so many great people and so many great experiences.
And God put me here for a reason.
And we're going to, we're going to see where that leads.
But I do believe that like whatever, wherever I land next, I just want to bring people together and like have tough conversations and have discussions and quit being hypocritical because now I'm going to, I'm going to be able to call you on it, not in like a mean way, but like, no, you can't say that.
And then do this.
It's just, it's, it's overdue.
And so I have nothing to lose now.
What the hell?
Let's go.
Yes.
So is there anything in particular, like perhaps a podcast, a digital show could be in your future?
I feel like that would go very well for you.
Or do you, because it's, there's risks in going back to work for the man?
Oh, you've talked about that publicly.
And I guess on your show.
And I've talked to a lot of people who have said that.
Like, all I've ever done since I was 15 years old at Dairy Queen in Colorado Springs, Colorado is work for someone else.
And I've had gotten so many great gifts from it.
I've never had to rely on just myself.
The past couple years.
Yes.
I got a paycheck for sure.
A nice paycheck.
I'm so blessed in that way.
But I've never had to do just me.
It's scary, but I've pushed through enough scary things the past few years personally and professionally that I believe I can do it.
I want, I want to try.
But I don't know about you and I'd love to ask you whether it's here or later, but you do have to have someone take a chance on you as well, again, to give you the opportunity to do something and to create something.
And I'm used to, I'm used to kind of having to live in a box.
And I execute orders very well.
I'm really good at executing.
What if I create them?
I've just never had that opportunity.
So I'd love to.
Your dad's the colonel.
And they call your mom the general.
You've got this in your blood.
Like this, you can do this.
And honestly, I am there to help you with all of it.
I would love, love, love to help you in your next chapter.
But I have a prediction, Sage.
I think two years from now, we're going to be sitting here.
What is today?
August 17th.
We're going to be sitting here.
You're going to have a very successful independent show.
That's my prediction.
And I also think you're going to have a new man.
You're going to have love in your life because once you sort of scrape off some of the barnacles, get rid of some of like the stuff that's been dragging you down, you that new skin to take you back to the sage steel who marketed the lotions at night.
You get that new skin after the exfoliation and the glow is there and it attracts all good things in every area of your life.
I mean, you know how many red-blooded American men out there are like, how about me?
How about me?
Like more ways than one.
Thank you.
No, and thank you so much for what you just said about the show and the future.
And I pray that you're right.
I do think this, that not all men can handle women like us.
True, true.
And that's what I'm really learning.
And you have to have a strong, confident alpha male, at least that's what I want, who can handle us and uplift us and say, you go, girl, I got your back.
And if anyone messes with you, I will cut them.
If not, something much worse, go for it.
But also check me when I need to be checked.
But love me for me and my crazy and my emotions and for my awesome children and for Megan Kelly and your, and that's what Doug is to you and your firepower and everything else.
And he would, I guarantee he wouldn't change a thing, right?
I just, we need to, whether it's professionally or personally, surround ourselves with the right people who believe in us and love us for who we are.
And you're right.
I think once we get there in all aspects, like, man, the chains are off.
And watch out.
And I think that's the exciting thing.
Despite my age, I'll be 51 in November.
I feel like not only am I really immature and like, okay, I have a child.
Let's go, but I also feel like tons of energy and a new beginning and no fear, even though I have no clue what life looks like an hour from now.
Sage Steele, who chose a harder right instead of an easier wrong.
I'm honored to call you a friend.
All the best to you.
Megan, can I just send you a hug through this screen?
I'm so grateful for you and for allowing me to speak for the first time ever as myself.
So I love you.
Thank you.
I love you too.
I'm honored.
You sat with me.
All the best to be continued.
Oh my God.
You're welcome.
She's amazing.
I'm so happy to bring you that conversation.
I know you're loving it as much as I loved it and would love your feedback on it too.
You can always email me, Megan at MeganKelly.com.
We're going to be back on Monday.
In the meantime, have a great, great weekend, and we'll talk more about it.
Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.
No BS, no agenda, and no
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