Former ESPN host Jemele Hill echoes Pat McAfee’s criticisms of ESPN leadership: ‘I could certainly relate’

Former ESPN host Jemele Hill seemed to echo Pat McAfee's criticisms of the network on Tuesday during an interview on "The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz," and said she could "certainly" relate to it. 

ESPN host Pat McAfee called out ESPN Executive Vice President Norby Williamson during his show on Friday and said he was trying to "sabotage" his show on ESPN. ESPN released a statement responding to McAfee's comments on Saturday.

"No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN’s success than Norby Williamson," ESPN said. "We are thrilled with the multi-platform success that we have seen from The Pat McAfee Show across ESPN. We will handle this matter internally and have no further comment."

Host Dan Le Batard, who also worked at ESPN, brought in Hill to discuss the back-and-forth between ESPN leadership and talent. Le Batard asked her about it and said "most of this" was funny.

Pat McAfee at The 2023 ESPYS held at Dolby Theatre on July 12, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

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"I think I was pretty amused by it, as well," Hill said, "because, as you mentioned, Dan, this is just something that you just never see, and especially at a place like ESPN where there’s sort of an unofficial cardinal rule about talent-on-talent crime or letting what is happening in the building spill out into public arenas in the way in which Pat McAfee did. I mean I’ve never seen that in the history of this network that somebody just took a flamethrower to one of the executives there," she said, adding that "everyone" knew Williamson. 

"What happened to Mike [Michael Smith] and I on the 6 o’clock ‘SportsCenter ’— one day, I hope — will be a case study for media classes everywhere, and certainly toward the end of our time there," she said. "We experienced a lot of what Pat McAfee was talking about, so that is the part that I could certainly relate to."

Hill said McAfee's comments and ESPN's reaction were setting a "precedent" at the network and added, "this is very much a watershed moment in terms of how internal conflict is handled in a public manor." 

The podcast hosts said McAfee can do this and "nobody else can."

Former ESPN host Jemele Hill weighed in on the Pat McAfee, ESPN back-and-forth on Tuesday during a podcast appearance. (Left: (Photo by Robin L Marshall/Getty Images), Right: (Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images))

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"This is going to give somebody down the road a lot of leverage," Hill said. "Pat McAfee has an awful lot of leverage, which is why he called his shot. That's why he did it to begin with, because he already knew what the outcome would be." 

Le Batard said McAfee had "nothing to fear."

"This is not some scared, insecure journalist in the vanity business who’s interested in respecting authority," Le Batard said, referring to McAfee. "This is a guy who’s got all his own power and is renting to them. He will be bigger the moment that he leaves there because he was too hot for Disney to handle than he was at any point before that."

The saga began after Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers suggested late night host Jimmy Kimmel did not want the Epstein list to come out.

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) during a game between the New England Patriots and the New York Jets on January 7, 2024, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts.  (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

"There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, who are really hoping that doesn’t come out," Rodgers said. "I'll tell you what, if that list comes out, I definitely will be popping some sort of bottle."

ESPN issued an apology for the comments Rodgers made about Kimmel on Monday, and said "Aaron made a dumb and factually inaccurate joke about Jimmy Kimmel. It should never have happened. We all realized that in the moment."

Hill reacted to McAffe's comments calling out Williamson on social media Monday and said, "I can relate."

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Hill, who came under fire at ESPN for calling Donald Trump a "white supremacist" on social media, joined CNN's Abby Phillip on Tuesday for an interview on the topic as well. She criticized Rodgers, and said she wished she would have called Trump a "white supremacist" on air instead of just on Twitter.

"Well, it makes me wish that I would’ve said it on SportsCenter instead of tweeting it," Hill said. "Because people seem to think that anyway."