Rachel Nichols claimed Friday that “at least one person” at ESPN secretly spied on her during the 2020 NBA bubble.
While speaking with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jacksonthe former ESPN sportscaster opened up about leaving the company in January.
Nichols, 48, and ESPN agreed to part ways after a leaked audio exposed her thoughts on Maria Taylor getting the NBA Finals job over her.
While it was already highly-speculated that ESPN had spied on Nichols, she confirmed that they had the audio for a year before leaking it online.
“I didn’t know that if you leave a particular app running in the background, that the line from my hotel room looking into my hotel room to Bristol would stay open,” Nichols said. “Unfortunately, that entire time, nobody back at ESPN told me that there was an open line to my hotel room and anyone who looked at the feed could see me.
“No one shut it off, decided, Oh, she clearly doesn’t know she’s being watched, unpacking or doing all these other things.”
Rachel Nichols joins SHOWTIME Basketball
Now, Nichols has been hired at SHOWTIME Basketball, where she will work as a producer and host.
“At least one person decided to just sit and watch and started spying on me like I was their own personal television show,” Nichols said. “When they heard something they thought was, you see, they picked up their cell phone and they started recording my conversation on their cell phone.”
Nichols has always stated that she has nothing against Taylor or any other woman in the company, but instead believes that ESPN is trying to fix their image of lacking diversity.
The podcast clip went viral on Twitter over the weekend and could lead to repercussions for ESPN.
Watch the full interview below.
.