ESPN Reporter Michelle Beadle says NBA star LeBron James tried to get her fired on a new podcast episode.
After a two-year hiatus from sports media, the female reporter returned to the field with her podcast for The Athletic entitled “What Did I Miss?”
During her second episode, former ESPN colleague Paul Pierce appeared as a guest, and they discussed his firing from the Worldwide Leader.
Beadle took a moment to bring up the time LeBron James tried to get her fired for how she covered his infamous “Decision” saga, the New York Post reported.
“There was a rumor that [LeBron] got you fired from ESPN,” Pierce said.
“He tried,” Beadle responded. “He did try to do that. I was like ‘I’m honored that I’m even on your mind. Thank you very much for that, sir. That’s a weird place for me to be.’
“My stuff with him started out not personal. I made fun of ‘The Decision’ like 400,000 other talking heads did at the time, and I think for some reason that was it. It wasn’t personal, to begin with. It obviously now will always be personal. It is what it is. But I also am very comfortable with not liking people. I think that’s what makes us all healthy. It’s the people that pretend they like everyone – you can’t trust them.”
There’s a lot of little questions on what James actually did to try to get her fired.
Beadle worked for the sports network first, hosted “SportsNation” from 2009 through 2012, and then left for NBC Sports. But returned to ESPN in 2014 and resumed hosting “SportsNation” before eventually landing as host of “NBA Countdown.” She exited again in 2019.
