While Emmanuel Acho was not a defendant in the lawsuit that took down many of FS1’s power players last year, he nevertheless became a victim of the ensuing overhaul at the network.
A former FS1 hairstylist sued the company as well as its lead executive Charlie Dixon, and hosts Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor, in January of last year. The staffer accused all three of favor-trading through sex and depicted a culture of harassment and unsavory language around the company’s Los Angeles offices.
While Acho had already moved from cohosting Speak with Taylor by the time the suit dropped, his morning show, The Facility, was also canceled as part of sweeping changes to the FS1 daytime lineup.
Asked this week on The Awful Announcing Podcast whether he could have worked with Taylor again, Acho said he became nervous about his own status at FS1 once Dixon, his boss, was suspended. But Acho left unanswered whether he could have rejoined Taylor on Speak or another show.
“That’s a question you’d have to ask her,” he said. “Obviously, that’s in the midst of a whole bunch of chaos that I think she is probably going through at the time, with the woman who eventually sued her amongst Charlie, amongst Skip, amongst Fox. So I can’t answer that question, I just know if you wanted the most cost-effective, you separate us. Because then you don’t have to hire a host.”
In the lawsuit, the former hairstylist alleged that Taylor slept with Acho in an attempt to advance her career at FS1. Taylor, in a contract year at the time, was “sidelined” from late February 2025 until Speak was canceled later that year.
Acho said that while he was seen as a favorite at FS1 even among internal staff, he saw the writing on the wall. Without Dixon (fired in April 2025) to advocate for him, Acho assumed he could be let go by the start of the 2025 football season.
Indeed, FS1 included him in its cuts that summer. The network canceled The Facility, Speak, and Breakfast Ball. It then slotted two runs of Wake Up Barstool into the morning blocks and extended First Things First by an hour in the evenings, paring back its in-house programming considerably.
In the interview this week, Acho emphasized that the allegations in the lawsuit began long before he arrived at the network from ESPN.
“As soon as Charlie (Dixon) got axed or put on pause, I was like ruh-roh. And then the accusations were wild,” Acho said.
“Remember, I just got to Fox in 2020 during Covid. The accusations had started in like ’16, ’17. It’s stuff I ain’t never heard about. And during Covid, you’re now working remote. Fox apparently was a ghost town compared to what it was.
“So when I got to Fox, I’m like, ‘La-di, la-di, la-di, da.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait these are all the accusations? Oh, bro.’ So I started everybody … everybody thought because Acho’s here, everybody’s safe. As soon as [Dixon was out], I was like, ‘Oh bro, ain’t nobody safe no more. Start counting your days.'”
Taylor has resurfaced with multiple podcasts. Without directly addressing the allegations, Taylor has lamented the loss of privacy she faced last year. She and others have also suggested that she provoked the strongest response around the lawsuit due to the fact that she is a woman in the male-dominated sports television space.
Acho now owns and hosts Speakeasy, a live digital show that airs on the old YouTube channel for FS1’s Undisputed.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is an Editorial Lead at Awful Announcing overseeing digital content and special projects. He lives in Phoenix and has covered sports media for Awful Announcing since 2023.