Sage Steele recalls how Stephen A Smith warned her against speaking out while still at ESPN

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Former ESPN colleagues Sage Steele and Stephen A. Smith reunited on the former's podcast earlier this week, and they relived a memory when Steele made a major move that risked her tenure at the network, which was already in jeopardy.

Steele spoke about how she was not included in an ESPN special amid the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, and her former Black colleagues refused to be on it if she was, which was publicized in a Wall Street Journal article.

"That hid hard," Steele said on her show.

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Former ESPN colleagues Sage Steele and Stephen A. Smith reunited on Steele's podcast. (Jesse Grant; Logan Bowles/Getty Images)

"I said, ‘OK, if I’m preaching to everybody, including my children, to stand up for what is right, then I’m going to continue to stay silent for fear of many things that were real?' So the article came out, and I went on the air shaking, knowing what was probably happening behind the scenes."

Steele said she got a text from a concerned Smith saying, "Why? How does this help you?"

"That's exactly what I texted you," Smith recalled.

"I’ll never forget it," Steele replied. "Because I knew, No. 1, I knew that you wouldn’t do it if you didn’t care about me as a human being, much less, forget broadcaster. And No. 2, for me, it is bigger than money, it is bigger than position. It’s about principle at some point."

Sage Steele speaks onstage during the Players Tailgate by Bullseye Event Group on Feb. 13, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Bullseye Event Group)

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