Joy Taylor: Lawsuit ‘had nothing to do’ with departure from FS1

When FS1 axed most of its daytime studio show lineup earlier this summer, Joy Taylor was the focus of most stories about the changes at the network.

Taylor was under a microscope because in January, she was named as a defendant in a salacious lawsuit alleging workplace misconduct at Fox Sports. In the weeks that followed, Taylor was “sidelined” by the network as she hired outside legal counsel and mounted a defense against allegations that she had mistreated a former hairstylist at the network’s L.A. studios.

In her latest comments since leaving FS1, Taylor insisted that the lawsuit had “nothing to do” with her dismissal. And she took issue with the way that she was made to be the focal point of the network’s layoffs.

“I will say that that situation and that suit had nothing to do with the changes that happened at FS1,” Taylor said on the Hot Mics with Billy Bush podcast. “I think from a logical standpoint, everyone can just look at it and see what the changes were and that there were three shows that were cut.”

While Taylor is looking forward to new chances to move into production and roles behind the camera in addition to her revamped Two Personal podcast, she said that “being the headline of the change was really frustrating,” given that her dismissal was part of a wider evolution of FS1 and the sports media business.

“It can be boiled down to, for the internet, as ‘Joy Taylor is no longer at FS1.’ And that’s a simple way of looking at it,” Taylor said. “But the reality is, three shows were let go and a massive sports network shifted into a really aggressive, different direction.”

Soon after canceling Taylor’s Speak along with Breakfast Ball and The Facility, Fox Sports announced a new morning show co-produced with Barstool Sports.

Taylor denied comment on the ongoing legal dispute with former FS1 hairstylist Noushin Faraji, but told Bush she hopes to be able to give her side publicly “very soon.”

As she puts the lawsuit and FS1 in the rearview mirror, Taylor is taking solace in the fact that the messy saga reaffirmed the status she held in her role.

“I’ve been told throughout my entire career in the sports business that women don’t belong, we don’t break through, and we don’t garner attention or audiences,” she said. “And this situation, I think, has done a pretty good job of arguing that that is not the case.”