Stephen A. Smith announces Molly Qerim’s abrupt exit from ‘First Take’ and ESPN

Following reports that Molly Qerim was leaving ESPN at the end of the year, the First Take host appears to have already departed.

Monday night, Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal reported Qerim was planning to leave ESPN when her contract expires at the end of 2025.

Tuesday morning, however, Stephen A. Smith opened First Take with a farewell message to Qerim, making it seem like her time at the network was already finished.

Stephen A. Smith: “Good morning and welcome to First Take. Normally, our friend Molly Qerim would greet you. However, Molly announced last night she will be departing from ESPN. She’s hosted First Take for 10 years and elevated the show with her grace, her expertise and her… pic.twitter.com/meZxjj8HVe

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 16, 2025

“Welcome to First Take,” Smith began. “Normally, our friend Molly Qerim would greet you, however, Molly announced last night she would be departing from ESPN. She’s hosted First Take for 10 years and elevated the show with her grace, her expertise and her incomparable kindness.

“She’s been an enormous part of our success for a decade. Not only did she keep me and many others in line, she did it with dignity and class and kindness to say the least. We’ll miss her and wish her every blessing on her future. I personally am grateful to her for her friendship, and I will miss spending every weekday morning with her right by my side.”

After the news of Qerim’s looming departure broke Monday night, she confirmed the report in an Instagram story. Qerim shared that she decided to step away from First Take and expressed gratitude for the opportunity to be part of the show.

Molly Qerim has been with ESPN for nearly two decades and began contributing to First Take as a fill-in host in 2015, before taking over full-time when predecessor Cari Champion moved to anchoring SportsCenter. Over the course of the last ten years, Qerim went from being a host who introduced questions and topics to being an integral part of the show. As Smith noted, keeping himself and others in check on First Take is not always an easy task.

Molly Qerim hosted First Take Monday morning and made no indication that it was going to be her last show.  With Qerim’s time at ESPN and First Take coming to an end, Smith was in the host chair Tuesday morning, and will be for the rest of the week. Smith has hosted the show before, but it’s rare. Typically, First Take has a fill-in host when Qerim is out, but Smith assuming the role implies they weren’t fully prepared for this abrupt departure.