Jemele Hill Says She ‘Expressed My Personal Beliefs,’ But Regrets Painting ‘ESPN in an Unfair Light’

Sports

ESPN says the network accepts “SportsCenter” anchor’s apology for tweets calling President Trump a “white supremacist”

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“SportsCenter” anchor Jemele Hill took to Twitter again on Wednesday night to “address the elephant in the room” regarding a recent tweet calling President Trump a “white supremacist.”

“My comments on Twitter expressed my personal beliefs,” the “SC6” host wrote. “My regret is that my comments and the public way I made them painted ESPN in an unfair light. My respect for the company and my colleagues remains unconditional,” she added.

The sports network also released a statement Wednesday, saying: “Jemele has a right to her personal opinions, but not to publicly share them on a platform that implies that she was in any way speaking on behalf of ESPN. She has acknowledged that her tweets crossed that line and has apologized for doing so. We accept her apology.”

“Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists,” Hill wrote during her initial string of tweets Monday night. “Donald Trump is a bigot,” she went on to say. “Glad you could live with voting for him. I couldn’t, because I cared about more than just myself.”

While ESPN said in a statement afterwards that they had addressed the issue with Jemele and that she “recognizes her actions are inappropriate,” others complained that she hadn’t been reprimanded harshly enough.

“It’s one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make and certainly something I think is a fireable offense by ESPN,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a press briefing.

Despite backlash from Trump supporters, Hill has received strong support from many followers, including her ESPN co-workers and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

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