ESPN’s Jemele Hill says her suspension was justified

Jemele Hill (above) is returning to ESPN on Monday after a two week suspension

Sportscaster Jemele Hill has spoken out, saying she deserved her suspension from ESPN for her controversial tweets but saying she stands by her remarks.

SportsCenter co-host Hill, who will return from her two-week suspension on Monday, offered her reflections in an impromptu interview with TMZ Sports at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday.

‘Here’s the reality, ESPN acted what they felt was right, and I don’t have any argument or quibble with that,’ said Hill. 

Hill drew a warning from the network last month after calling President Donald Trump a ‘white supremacist’ and was suspended from the air after calling for an NFL advertiser boycott after some team owners demanded players stand for the national anthem.

‘I would tell people, absolutely, after my Donald Trump tweets, I deserved that suspension. I deserved it. Like, absolutely. I violated the policy,’ said Hill.

The sports commentator said she stood by her controversial remarks, however.

‘The only thing I ever apologized of is I put ESPN in a bad spot. I’ll never take back what I said,’ she added. ‘You can take that to mean what it means.’

Hill has been silent on Twitter since October 10, when she was pulled from the air.

But she vowed to return, saying: ‘I’m coming back to Twitter. I want people to understand this that there was never any restrictions placed on me about Twitter. I’ll be back on Twitter and I’ll be my usual self.’

Hill’s series of contentious Twitter remarks have been closely tied to the NFL’s national anthem kneeling controversy.

She first raised eyebrows in July, while blasting teams in the league for not signing former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the anthem last season as a protest against racial disparities and police brutality.

In a conversation thread, she defended Kaepernick’s comparison of the police to ‘slave patrols’ as ‘inflammatory, but historically accurate’.

Hill's series of contentious Twitter remarks have been closely tied to the NFL's national anthem kneeling controversy, which began last season with Colin Kaepernick (center)

Hill’s series of contentious Twitter remarks have been closely tied to the NFL’s national anthem kneeling controversy, which began last season with Colin Kaepernick (center)

Hill (right) has been silent on Twitter since October 10, when she was pulled from the air 

Hill (right) has been silent on Twitter since October 10, when she was pulled from the air 

Her two-week suspension comes to an end on Monday. She now has apologized for putting ESPN in a 'bad position' with her remarks, but says she stands by them

Her two-week suspension comes to an end on Monday. She now has apologized for putting ESPN in a ‘bad position’ with her remarks, but says she stands by them

As the kneeling controversy exploded, with Trump blasting players who refused to stand as ‘sons of b****s’, Hill became more vocal, calling the president a ‘white supremacist’ and ‘bigot’.

Those comments drew a statement from ESPN condemning her remarks, while White House spokeswoman Sarah Hukabee Sanders called on the network to fire Hill.

The final straw came, though, when Hill directed her Twitter wrath at NFL team owners. 

On October 8, Hill posted a number of tweets in reaction to the news that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones would order any player who ‘disrespected’ the Stars and Stripes be benched. 

Her tweets seemed to suggest that fans should boycott the team’s advertisers in response to Jones’s directive. 

Jones made the comments – his strongest yet in response to the national anthem controversy – when asked about Vice President Mike Pence leaving the game in Indianapolis after about a dozen San Francisco players knelt during the Star-Spangled Banner.

‘Cowboys have a huge national following. Lot of black & brown folks are Cowboys fans. What if they turned their backs on them?’ Hill tweeted.

For an ESPN personality to suggest a boycott of the NFL or one of its teams is extraordinary, given the fact that the network pays the league huge sums of money every year for the right to broadcast its games. 

The ‘worldwide leader in sports’ pays the NFL $1.9billion each year, per the terms of the television contract. 

Hill returns to the 6pm hour of SportsCenter, and presumably also to Twitter, on Monday.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk