Truth emerges on Chris Berman's alleged racial threats against Jemele Hill
Monday, ESPN announced that it had a new president. James Pitaro, former Disney chairman, is now the eighth president in the history of ESPN.
As a welcoming gift, one of the first major issues Pitaro is going to have to deal with is a damning lawsuit alleging that ESPN is a terrible work environment for women.
“ESPN is, and always has been, a company rife with misogyny,” the opening line of the lawsuit reads.
Former ESPN host and legal analyst Adrienne Lawrence is going after her former employees for what she claims is a pattern of predatory sexual harassment that is willfully ignored.
Lawrence is going scorched earth against ESPN, pointing the finger at numerous ESPN employees both past and present.
One of her more damning allegations was levied against longtime ESPN host and NFL analyst Chris Berman.
“In early 2016, ESPN’s ‘The Undefeated’ personality Jemele Hill received a threatening and racially disparaging voicemail from Berman on her ESPN phone line,” Lawrence claims in her lawsuit. Lawrence then goes on to allege that after Hill approached her direct superior and ESPN executive Marcia Keegan, nothing of note was done about the situation.
It’s an especially bad look for Berman, considering he and ESPN settled a sexual harassment claim in 2015 with a former ESPN makeup artist.
Interestingly, it is now Hill who has come out firing against the allegations, claiming that Lawrence is using the lawsuit for her “personal gains” and that Berman never left any “racially disparaging” voicemails for her.
“A few years ago, I had a personal conflict with Chris Berman, but the way this conflict has been characterized is dangerously inaccurate,” Hill said in a statement. “Chris never left any racially disparaging remarks on my voicemail and our conflict was handled swiftly and with the utmost professionalism.”
Hill went on to express disappointment in Lawrence’s lawsuit.
“Frankly, I’m more disappointed that someone I considered to be a friend at one point would misrepresent and relay a private conversation without my knowledge — in which I simply attempted to be a sounding board — for personal gain,” Hill wrote.
For her part, Lawrence isn’t backing down. She openly challenged Hill to produce evidence in an interview with Think Progress.
“I’ll be damned if anyone says this is for my personal gain. Play the voicemail then, the one that you kept,” Lawrence said. “Play it, I know you have it. I’ve never heard it. I went off of her description of it.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s for the women there who I left behind that would come to me and ask me for my help,” Lawrence claimed in the interview. “There are women that are scared, there are women trying to get into this business, and they’re siloed in silence.”
“I can’t leave those girls behind. I couldn’t just take a paycheck and be silenced, and it’s disappointing that others can,” Lawrence said, doubling down on her crusade against ESPN. “It’s really disappointing to see all of these women who have the power to say something, and yet they will do anything to protect the shield. The shield abused them when they were on the way up, and it will abuse them on their way down.”
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