Jemele Hill Runs on Green Tea, Soap Operas, and Delta Diamond Status
A show or an interview, a speech or a performance, a book launch or a movie premiere—the event a woman has counted down to for feverish weeks or months or decades. Of course she's prepared. That part is obvious. But what about the rest of it? What about the green juice elixirs she drank to ward off the flu, or the ad hoc child care she had to improvise, or the bedtime ritual that keeps her sane? We at Glamour wanted to hear all about it. So we sat down with some of the women we most esteem, women on the brink of their biggest professional moments, and insisted: Tell us about the night before.
In 2017 former ESPN SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill found herself on the White House's expansive "naughty list." It all started when Hill tweeted, "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself [with] other white supremacists." Trump fired back with a tweet of his own, and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Hill's tweet a "fireable offense." In the end ESPN released a statement maintaining that the network didn't share Hill's views. She has since moved over to The Atlantic, where she's a staff writer. Despite the turmoil Hill blocked out the trolls and refused to back down. "People would be like, 'I hate watching you on ESPN,' but they’d be there every day, and I’d be like, 'OK, Thanks for the ratings. These checks cash the same,'" Hill tells Glamour. Then she quotes Nas: "Hate is just twisted admiration."
When Hill left the network after 12 years, she jumped at the chance to pursue other projects. In addition to her gig at The Atlantic, she narrated Lebron James' docuseries Shut Up and Dribble, started her own production outfit, and and now has launched the podcast Jemele Hill Is Unbothered. (She's also planning her wedding.) Of the podcast, she explains, "It's probably the most creative freedom I’ve ever had. It’s such a different mode for me because with sports [and being a commentator], there’s something very linear about how sports operates. But now I just feel like I’m coloring outside the lines all over the place and that feels really good."
From the premiere of Game of Thrones and booking a DJ for her wedding to getting into it over Tiger Woods, Hill takes us inside her podcast prep.
The Logistics
I was in Atlanta when we recorded the first episode. I travel a lot, so I'm lucky that our production partner has studios in every major city. Frankly, I don't know how I'm making it work. Diamond status on Delta Airlines, I guess. But even though I'm not always in the same place as my cohosts, author Michael Arceneaux and director Cole Wiley, while we're taping or prepping, we're always texting on our group chat, throwing around ideas for the show. In one text, Cole sent us a hilarious video where one of his friends saw the news that he was going to be doing the podcast and said, "Oh, so you have a new work wife?" And then he was like, "I guess I have a work husband too." We're polygamists. This podcast is what it would be like to go to a bar with a polygamist family.
The Hiccups
On top of everything else I have going on, I'm planning a wedding for November. I have a wedding planner who's fantastic. But I'm the most anti bride ever. I don’t have a favorite color, I don't care about flowers, I don't care about designs. In this situation my fiancé is sort of the bride. But there are still things I have to weigh in on. So before we taped, I had to deal with securing the DJ. The planner had already sent us his contract, but his fee wasn't included in it. Then we found out that we'll need to rent the equipment for him. Needless to say there were a lot of emails exchanged. And this keeps happening. I was just at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand, bathing some baby elephants, and had to step out to hop on a conference call to discuss venue options.
Then, right before we went started taping, I got a text from my future father-in-law. He's at my house in Florida and texted to report that he found a mouse's nest. He's a contractor and a wonderful human, so he'd already put poison down, killed the mice, and gotten the carcasses out of the house. Thank God—because if I had walked into my house and seen a mouse's nest, I probably would've put it on the market the next day.
The Final Touches
On Sunday I spent a good bit of time watching the Masters. I texted the group chat that I thought we could have a really nuanced conversation about Tiger Woods' win for the first episode. My exact text was "Tiger Woods. It was very interesting to see a lot of people caping for this dude because he has been, at times, problematic. It gets into that whole thing about compartmentalizing your rage. Or even perhaps if you're black, rooting for other black people who haven't had our best interest, but are still happy to see them win."
Before taping at 11:00 A.M., the only thing I had written was my introduction. I never practice what I'm going to say, because then it won't sound authentic. But I still had to prep. We set the agenda by 10:15 A.M., and then I read through some stuff on Tiger Woods and sent the audio to our producers that I wanted to use on the show. We also selected a sound bite we wanted to use from Nipsey Hussle's funeral, when [his partner] Lauren London spoke about how she was grateful to have loved him. I also read the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and recaps of Game of Thrones, which we also talked about on the show. Then I had oatmeal, bacon, and some green tea—my caffeine of choice for the morning. But I can also be a 5-Hour Energy hog, especially on the days when I work out.
The Calm Before the Storm
When we decided to launch the show on Monday, April 15, I neglected to think about one very important detail: that the Game of Thrones premiere was going to be the night before the premiere. I had a dilemma because my fiancé and I had planned to watch it together on the phone—we were in different cities—but his flight was delayed and he wouldn't be able to watch until 11:00 P.M. So I had a decision to make: Do I risk the relationship and watch it without him? Or do I wait for him like a good fiancée? Of course I watched it without him, which he wasn't mad about. I waited up until he was done, and then we gave it a total autopsy, discussing every scene, getting our predictions out of the way, until 1:00 A.M.
Now, I'm the kind of person who has to fall asleep to the television. I try to find the most benign thing I don't have to pay attention to, so usually it's a movie I've seen 100 times. I also write to television, usually The Young and the Restless. I've watched it for 20 years. I DVR it every single day, and it's my muse. I have it on in the background and I'll just be writing something and then all of a sudden it's like, "Sharon just had that baby?" But on this particular night I fell asleep around 2:00 A.M. to Bar Rescue, which is also one of my favorite shows.
In terms of stress, I'd say I was at a six out of 10. Whenever I'm nervous, I think about the fact that I've done this kind of thing so many times. I have this perspective in my mind like, "Did you die? No. It will be OK." I'm my own patron saint of calm. The most stressed I've ever really been was the last 18 months I was at ESPN. When Mike Smith and I first took over the 6:00 P.M. SportsCenter. It was the first time in my career when I actually hated my job.
The Big Picture
After I left ESPN, I knew I wanted to get back into commentary and be thoughtful about how I did it, which is why I joined The Atlantic. But I wanted something more in the broadcast space. When Spotify made its interest known, it was too right not to do it. And getting to do it with Michael and Cole is incredible. I love how our brains work together. It's a great alliance of people who come from different backgrounds but share a like-mindedness that I think will be compelling to the people who listen.
When I finished recording, I celebrated by going to work out. I love working out and exercising because it’s an opportunity for me to slow down—especially when I do hot yoga, because I have to concentrate so much on not dying that I can't focus on anything else. I also watched a little This Is Us. I'm behind on it, but I couldn't relax too much. I immediately had to start prepping for a guest we have coming onto the show and a big Atlantic piece due at the end of the month. It never stops.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
