Let me let you in on a bit of a secret.
Athletes and entertainers try to get people fired all the time. I remember a famous athlete wrote a long email to the “Owner of BlackSportsOnline” demanding that I be fired. I wrote him back saying I considered his request, but I will have to decline to fire myself.
Athletes can get certain media members banned from events or demoted at their job. It is a dirty game. So I am not surprised that LeBron tried to get Michelle Beadle fired. She wasn’t the first, and I am sure she won’t be the last.
Paul Pierce is the one who brought up this “rumor” on Beadle’s podcast, and she took it from there.
“There was a rumor that [LeBron] got you fired from ESPN,” Pierce said.
“He tried,” Beadle responded. “He did try to do that. I was like ‘I’m honored that I’m even on your mind. Thank you very much for that, sir. That’s a weird place for me to be.’
“My stuff with him started out not personal. I made fun of ‘The Decision’ like 400,000 other talking heads did at the time, and I think for some reason that was it. It wasn’t personal to begin with. It obviously now will always be personal. It is what it is. But I also am very comfortable with not liking people. I think that’s what makes us all healthy. It’s the people that pretend they like everyone – you can’t trust them.”
How LeBron tried to get her fired is unclear, but LeBron, like most star athletes, can easily get the head of a network on the line whenever they want.
Do you think it was fair or foul for LeBron to do this?
Flip the page for Beadle and PP talking about this and her clowning “THE DECISION.”