Cari Champion Blasts Former ESPN Colleague Sage Steele on CNN: ‘She Clearly Has an Issue with Women’
ESPN’s Sage Steele made headlines that proceeded to transcend sports media last week after her divisive interview with former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler.
The comments were controversial enough for ESPN to consider pulling the SportsCenter anchor from their airwaves, a decision the network ultimately moved forward with after Steele reportedly tested positive for Covid-19. Steele’s former ESPN colleague, Cari Champion joined CNN’s New Day Wednesday morning to express her frustration with someone she used to look up to.
“A lot of people, regardless of her experience or how she chooses to identify for many years related to Sage as the brown girl at ESPN or someone they could look up to or they could aspire to be like,” Champion told CNN’s Brianna Keilar. “And my reaction was simply disappointed.”
Steele didn’t stick to sports during her chat with Cutler, blasting ESPN for enforcing a “sick and scary” Covid vaccine mandate, lashing out at women in media for their attire, and questioning the racial identity of former President Barack Obama.
“It also shows that there is just a lack of unawareness on her part,” Champion said of Steele, who questioned why Obama identified as Black on a recent census. “And there was no one there to say that sounds a little strange, don’t you think, Sage? For you to say that about the former president. And it’s actually disrespectful.”
Keilar went on to play a clip of Steele’s shocking comments about how women dress sports media. “When you dress like that,” Steele said on Uncut with Jay Cutler. “I’m not saying you deserve the gross comments, but you know what you’re doing when you’re putting that outfit on, too.”
“That’s dumb. I don’t have any other eloquent way to say that,” Champion fired back on CNN. “She clearly has issues with women…her statements, while being anti-Black…probably would not have been a big issue, but now she’s anti-woman and that’s a big no-no.”
“This business, in-particular which is a male dominated business, really doesn’t lend itself to be friendly towards women,” Champion continued. “So if you have a woman who’s at the top of her game saying she’s not going to help another woman because of the way she’s dressed – all that does is push us further down.”
Steele did issue an apology for her comments Tuesday morning after it was announced she would be off-air from ESPN this week.
“I know my recent comments created controversy for the company, and I apologize,” Steele wrote. “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.”
Watch above via CNN
