Longtime ESPN host Sage Steele recently left the company after settling a lawsuit over breach of contract, and appeared on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast for an interview in which she explained her issues with another Disney property, The View.
After Maher suggested she join the show, Steele discussed her past guest appearances as well as her audition to join the full-time cast before attacking the lack of diversity of thought on the show.
“They 100 percent are full of it,” Steele said. “They don’t want to hear your view if you think differently than they do, and they are fine telling lies on that stage … because they know that if someone calls them on it, they’re just going to talk over them and have the audience clap and go to break.
“So the show to me is despicable, and it makes me sad, because the potential for 20-something years … is incredible, and they ruined it.”
Steele also reminded Maher that a return to a Disney property is unlikely due to the settlement she agreed to and her recent departure from ESPN.
But she also went further to reiterate she would seemingly never consider joining a show like that in the future.
“I was under the same umbrella of Disney, they easily could have called me,” Steele said. “Especially the last several years when these conversations have to take place. They won’t call me. Why? Because they know that I’m not afraid. They don’t want that. So no thank you.”
Steele previously accused the late Barbara Walters of assaulting her backstage at The View. But she seems to have genuine respect for the show, especially its conservative panelists like Elizabeth Hasselbeck.
While a return to The View is surely unlikely now despite Maher’s hopes, Steele has yet to announce her next career move since leaving ESPN last month.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.