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Last month, former ESPN anchor Michelle Beadle dropped a truth bomb about Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and his alleged attempt to get her fired. She has since provided more incriminating details about the controversial issue which further puts LeBron in a bad light.
Speaking on a recent episode of the House of Strauss podcast with host Ethan Strauss, Beadle explained why she believes the Lakers star wanted her booted out of ESPN's NBA Countdown program:
“To find out … I was just like ‘hey, what a weird person to have any input on your life,'” Beadle said, via Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post.
“He had a person at the network who he wanted. He wanted her to be the host of [NBA Countdown]. He does not like me, and I honestly have stopped trying to figure out why. For some reason, it goes back years. I’ve been around Maverick Carter. He refuses to shake my hand.”
As Beadle described in her statement above, she is not aware as to why the Lakers star allegedly has a personal vendetta against her. Then again, she did say back in November that she has some suspicion that it has something to do with how she made fun of LeBron's “The Decision” program from 2010. To be fair, though, Beadle was not the only one who criticized James for how he handled his decision to take his talents to the Miami Heat.
In the podcast, the host also mentioned that LeBron's ill will against Beadle could have also stemmed from her spoof of James' Nike ad from 2010. Here is the aforementioned skit which was a promo for Beadle's show SportsNation:
To be honest that was pretty hilarious. Here's the original version from Nike:
In the interview, Beadle did not specify who LeBron “wanted” to take over the show to replace her, but for what it's worth, it was Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor who filled Beadle's shoes when she eventually left the network in 2019. Incidentally, Nichols and Taylor were later involved in a highly-publicized controversy after a rather inappropriate rant from the former was leaked to the public. Nichols ended up being axed from her show, The Jump, while Taylor parted ways with ESPN.
For her part, Beadle also described the environment in ESPN as intense. She admitted that there was a lot of competition within their ranks as a number of individuals were gunning for Beadle's highly sought-after position as an anchor of an extremely popular sports program:
“For me personally, it was always a woman-on-woman thing,” Beadle said. “Could we just be more cliche? That is just a played-out lame thing people assume, and for it to actually come to fruition is just a disappointment.
“I had a job that was wanted by people. I get it. I wanted it too. It was a great job. In the game of trying to get that job, I learned that people were willing to do things that I just wasn’t gonna do. I wasn’t gonna play games with the media. I wasn’t gonna spread lies.”
It goes without saying that being an ESPN host has its fair share of controversies which apparently, extends all the way to the biggest superstar in the NBA right now in LeBron James of the Lakers.
