LeBron James has had a problematic relationship with several media members. Over the years, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar has received a lot of criticism from his detractors. One of the most famous is Skip Bayless, who’s taken his career to the next level after constantly attacking The King.
One of his former on-court rivals, Paul Pierce, also had bad things to say about him during his stint on ESPN. Chris Broussard is another person who often goes after LBJ, but it seems like LeBron has never tried to get them removed from their positions.
However, recent claims accuse the 4x NBA champion of attempting to get a reporter fired from ESPN. Michelle Beadle worked for the worldwide leader of sports for several years. After she made fun of LeBron’s infamous segment ‘The Decision,’ the 46-year-old earned the animosity of the player.
Talking on The Athletic’s ‘What Did I Miss?’ podcast, Michelle claimed that LeBron tried to get her fired from ESPN after she mocked The Decision.
“He tried,” she said. “He did try, yup. He did try to do that. I was like, ‘Wow, I’m honored that I’m even on your mind. Thank you very much, sir. That’s a weird place for me to be.’ So, 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. So, it wasn’t personal to begin with it. It’s obviously, now it will always be personal.”
Michelle Beadle says LeBron James tried to get her fired from ESPN: pic.twitter.com/MtzGBr5P5u
— Clips & Quips (@Clipselberry) November 19, 2021
It’ll be hard to get a response from LeBron on this. It’ll be even harder to know if he had more reasons to go after Beadle. The former NBA Countdown host is now part of The Athletic, already making noise with her interviews.
She recently interviewed former ESPN teammate Paul Pierce, who talked about his infamous exit from the multimedia company and his infamous wheelchair game.
This is a serious accusation, but Beadle sounds confident that things went that way. She ended up leaving ESPN and the reasons behind her exit remain a mystery. Still, she seems to be fine where she is right now.