Jemele Hill has found her way back at ESPN. The sports personality recently appeared on Cold as Balls for Kevin Hart‘s Laugh Out Loud and revealed that she is working with Colin Kaepernick, who is doing work for Disney and ESPN. Hill left ESPN in August 2018 after working for the company for 12 years.
“Not only has Kaepernick and the way people perceive his protests come full circle… my relationship with ESPN has as well,” she said. “Now Kaepernick is producing content with Disney and ESPN and he asked me to come on board as a producer.” Hill did not reveal what type of content she’ll be producing with Kaepernick, but seeing her back at ESPN in any capacity is a little surprising for some considering how things ended for her. In September 2017, Hill called Donald Trump a “white supremacist,” which led to a lot of backlash on social media. ESPN suspended her for two weeks nearly one month after the incident.
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“Everybody was like why would you go back there after everything that happened?” Hill said. “And I’m like – because this is bigger than me.” Hill also talked to Hart about how there needs to be more women and women of color in sports. “A lot of people of color don’t come from the kind of backgrounds where you can stay in a business that – maybe your first job you’re getting paid twenty thousand dollars a year, or you’re doing unpaid internships,” she stated. “We can’t afford to do that and so what’s next, is to make sure that I not only open the door, but I kick it open and leave it open because we need more women of color in sports.”
Hill has been keeping herself busy. Along with doing work with Kaepernick, Hill has launched two podcasts in the past year and is the co-host of the TV show Cari & Jemele (Won’t) Stick to Sports with Cari Champion on Vice TV. Kaepernick is also hard at work despite still being a free agent. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback is the producer of a new Netflix series that will tell the story of his life when he was in high school. He also has his own Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor that will be released next year.
