Jemele Hill responds to Trump/'white supremacist' controversy: 'Personal beliefs'

Jemele Hill, the ESPN SportsCenter anchor who found herself in the middle of a White House controversy after tweeting her feelings about President Trump, took to Twitter once again to offer up some perspective. Hill’s earlier tweets called Trump a “white supremacist,” and the White House responded by saying those words were a “fireable offense.” Wednesday night, Hill put distance between herself and ESPN’s corporate policy:

“My comments on Twitter expressed my personal beliefs,” she wrote. “My regret is that my comments and the public way I made them painted ESPN in an unfair light. My respect for the company and my colleagues remains unconditional.”

Worth noting: Hill neither backed off her message that “Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists,” nor deleted the tweets in question. Hill and ESPN have drawn heat for the comments, with some observers complaining that ESPN holds double standards for conservative versus liberal political commentary.

Update: ESPN released its own statement: “Jemele has a right to her personal opinions, but not to publicly share them on a platform that implies that she was in any way speaking on behalf of ESPN. She has acknowledged that her tweets crossed that line and has apologized for doing so. We accept her apology.” It’s unclear how Hill commenting on her personal Twitter account could be construed that she was speaking for ESPN, but it is clear her apology was for bringing ESPN into the fray, not for the content of her tweets.

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.