ESPN anchor Sage Steele publicly called her company’s COVID vaccination requirement “sick” during a recent podcast appearance with former NFL QB Jay Cutler.
Steele said the Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN, mandated all employees get the jab before September 30, lest they be fired.
The ESPN personality told Cutler that she did get the vaccine, but she “didn’t want to do it,” the New York Post reported.
“I work for a company that mandates it and I had until September 30th to get it done or I’m out,” she said.
“I respect everyone’s decision, I really do, but to mandate it is sick and it’s scary to me in many ways,” Steele continued. “I just, I’m not surprised it got to this point, especially with Disney, I mean a global company like that.”
Steele on Tuesday retweeted Orlando Magic star Jonathan Isaac, who wrote, “Misrepresentation only allows for others to attack straw men, and not reason with the true ideas and heart of their fellow man. It helps no one! True journalism is dying! I believe it is your God given right to decide if taking the vaccine is right for you! Period!”
Misrepresentation only allows for others to attack straw men, and not reason with the true ideas and heart of their fellow man. It helps no one! True journalism is dying! I believe it is your God given right to decide if taking the vaccine is right for you! Period! More to follow
— Jonathan Isaac (@JJudahIsaac) September 26, 2021
She also posted Isaac’s much-praised explanation to the press for not getting vaccinated against COVID. “Much respect,” she captioned the video.
And another. ⬇️⬇️
Much respect @JJudahIsaac https://t.co/H2YrmDscqW— Sage Steele (@sagesteele) September 28, 2021
Steele has bucked far-left identify politics on numerous occasions. Last summer, for example, the sports anchor thanked former NBA star Charles Barkley for calling out people in the black community for expressing hate toward white and Jewish people, name-checking entertainer Nick Cannon, rapper Ice Cube, and NFL player DeSean Jackson.
“Thank you, Charles,” Steele captioned the video of Barkley condemning the hate.
“Steele grew up around the military,” Outkick the Coverage noted of Steele. “She has come under fire for positions on social media over the years, including taking issue with all the coverage Colin Kaepernick was receiving and criticizing people who were protesting against Donald Trump’s travel ban for disrupting others’ airport travel logistics.”
“Recently, and this was after the special that she was allegedly frozen out of, she expressed frustration about how little criticism DeSean Jackson received for sharing a Hitler quote on Instagram in comparison to what Drew Brees said about standing for the national anthem,” the sports outlet added.
Moreover, Steele seemed to confirm a Wall Street Journal report in 2020 that claimed the anchor was iced out of a special for ESPN regarding race after two colleagues of Steele’s, who are black, complained that the biracial anchor would not be accepted by the black community; or, as Steele herself described it, she was deemed not “black enough.”
“I found it sad for all of us that any human being should be allowed to define someone’s ‘Blackness,’” the anchor told the Journal. “Growing up biracial in America with a Black father and a white mother, I have felt the inequities that many, if not all Black and biracial people have felt—being called a monkey, the ‘n’ word, having ape sounds made as I walked by—words and actions that all of us know sting forever.”
“Most importantly, trying to define who is and isn’t Black enough goes against everything we are fighting for in this country, and only creates more of a divide,” Steele added.
ESPN has denied the allegations.