Video leaks of Rachel Nichols making racist remarks about ESPN colleague Maria Taylor
Rachel Nichols, the white ESPN broadcaster who hosts the network’s program “The Jump,” was caught on a “hot camera” accusing her employer in 2020 of giving Maria Taylor the job as host of the program “NBA Countdown” because she is a Black person.
“I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball,” Nichols said last July while quarantining in an Orlando, Florida, hotel in preparation for the NBA’s resumed bubble season. She was speaking on the phone with Adam Mendelsohn, an adviser and spokesman of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, and who Nichols reportedly called a friend. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”
The video was acquired by The New York Times and shared in a report published Sunday.
Nichols had a camera, which was hooked up to record back to ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut, in her room in order to continue hosting “The Jump” while quarantining in her hotel room. Most at the network believed Nichols did not shut off the camera properly, according to the Times.
Nichols over the clip also said hosting the NBA pregame show was written in her contract.
The clip was discovered and shared throughout ESPN last year, which sparked outrage through the company, but did not result in punishment for Nichols.
“I was shaken that a fellow employee would do this, and that other employees, including some of those within the NBA project, had no remorse about passing around a spy video of a female co-worker alone in her hotel room,” Nichols said. “I would in no way suggest that the way the comments came to light should grant a free pass on them being hurtful to other people.”
Eventually, Taylor only agreed to appear on NBA Countdown if Nichols didn’t. But ESPN execs got around it by arranging pretaped appearances for Nichols, a constant sore spot for the network’s NBA shows.
“I will not call myself a victim, but I certainly have felt victimized and I do not feel as though my complaints have been taken seriously,” Taylor wrote in an email, acquired by The Times, to ESPN executives after she learned of the video last year. “In fact, the first time I have heard from HR after 2 incidents of racial insensitivity was to ask if I leaked Rachel’s tape to the media. I would never do that. ... Simply being a front facing black woman at this company has taken its toll physically and mentally.”
Taylor and ESPN have been in negotiations over a renewed contract, according to multiple reports, as her current one expires soon.
Nichols told the Times she has unsuccessfully tried to apologize to Taylor since the incident: “My own intentions in that conversation, and the opinion of those in charge at ESPN, are not the sum of what matters here — if Maria felt the conversation was upsetting, then it was, and I was the cause of that for her. ... Maria has chosen not to respond to these offers, which is completely fair and a decision I respect.”
