Sophie Cunningham rolled her eyes at the mere mention of the speculation surrounding her podcast’s transformation.
During an appearance on The Colin Cowherd Podcast, the Indiana Fever forward, who became a lightning rod for right-wing culture warriors over the summer in the broader culture war over transgender athlete participation, dismissed the theories around the nearly three-month hiatus of Show Me Something, her podcast with longtime friend West Wilson, as “dumb.”
You’d be forgiven for assuming otherwise, given that the show’s final episode aired June 27, and West Wilson publicly broke with his childhood friend not long after, when Cunningham spoke out against transgender women competing in women’s sports during an ESPN profile in late July. The reality TV star called transgender women’s participation in sports “a borderline nonexistent issue” amplified by right-wing commentators, adding that the discourse further isolates transgender people while distracting Americans from “actual harmful sh*t” like the cost of living.
Neither Wilson nor representatives for The Volume responded to requests for comment, and Cunningham herself couldn’t be reached when Awful Announcing first reported on the podcast’s extended absence on Sept. 3.
The actual explanation, as it turns out, seems to predate the controversy. Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reported on Thursday that the rebrand had been in the works “for months,” citing a source who said the show’s one-year deal was expiring and that both Cunningham and Volume executives were pushing to narrow the show’s focus down to just basketball.
That show is No Hesitation, co-hosted with her personal shooting coach, Drew Hanlen.
“It’s just dumb. It’s just dumb,” Cunningham said. “And I think, you know, before you’re kind of, before you have this platform and before you’re kind of in the spotlight, you know, maybe I would have believed some of those stories or, like, would have got caught up in the gossip. But now that I’m on this side of it, I’m like, all these news outlets are just fake. They’re all fraud. Nothing is real.
“I think, honestly, that is why I wanted to, first of all, I thought of a great business opportunity with the WNBA. Like, there is no really good WNBA podcast, really, WNBA that strictly talks about basketball and, like, all the great things that it has in the WNBA. And so I was like, why are we not talking more like this?”
As for Wilson, Cunningham described the split as amicable and mutual, not the falling-out plenty of observers assumed it was. Wilson, meanwhile, lost his role on Bravo’s Summer House over a romantic entanglement with his ex-girlfriend’s best friend.
“I loved West. I think we had a really fun time together. I know that he’s off doing great things, too. But he was going through some stuff, then I was going through some stuff. Everything was very, you know, main media for both of us for a little bit,” Cunningham said. “So, I think a lot of people thought that we were going at it. We really weren’t. We were just rebranding. He was going to do his own thing. The Volume was going to take care of him. I wanted to go more basketball. And so, when I first saw it, I was like, ‘This is so goofy.’ And, like, we sent stuff back and forth. Me and Wes were like, ‘These people are just dumb.’ So, um, it was fun. I still love West to death, and I had a great time with him.”
That’s Cunningham’s version, anyway.
“When you guys, your podcast took a hiatus, there was a lot of speculation on the interweb about what it was,” Cowherd said. “And I, as somebody who’s founded The Volume, I get a kick out of speculation. And so I just let things play out because actually it’s good for our business when people are talking about The Volume. And so what Sophie was doing was rebuilding her podcast, which is now called No Hesitation, and her co-host is Drew Hanlen, your shooting coach, very well known, very highly regarded.”
It remains to be seen whether No Hesitation can actually deliver the WNBA-focused audience Cunningham says she set out to build.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.