ESPN's Jemele Hill: I Deserved A Suspension

Jemele Hill (TMZ Sports photo)

ESPN anchor Jemele Hill said on Saturday she “deserved a suspension” from the sports network after she called for fans to boycott the NFL and called President Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter, two days before she is set to return to work.

Hill told TMZ Sports in an impromptu interview at Los Angeles International Airport that she put “ESPN in a bad spot.”

“ESPN acted what they felt was right. I don’t have any argument,” Hill told TMZ Sports. "After my Donald Trump tweets, I deserved a suspension.”

She said, "I violated the policy. Going forward we'll be in a good, healthy place."

Hill is set to return to work after she was suspended for two weeks when she violated the network’s social media guidelines for the second time, ESPN announced on Oct. 9.

Hill bashed Trump on Twitter on Sept. 11, calling him a “white supremacist who has surrounded himself with other white supremacists. She continued her rant by saying Trump was “the most ignorant, offensive president of [her] lifetime,” a “bigot” and “unqualified and unfit to be president.”

She added, “If he were not white, he never would have been elected.”

Her tweets caught the attention of Trump and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who said the rhetoric was a “fireable offense” and demanded an apology. Hill issued an apology and said her tweets were her “personable beliefs” that “painted ESPN in an unfair light.”

But she continued her controversial comments on the social media site on Oct. 8 when she said Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones “created a problem for his players, specifically the black ones” in the NFL kneeling controversy. Jones said the NFL and the Cowboys were “going to stand up for the flag” after Vice President Mike Pence left an Indianapolis Colts game when several players kneeled during the national anthem.

“By drawing a line in the sand, Jerry put his players under more scrutiny and threw them under the bus... If the rationale behind JJ's stance is keeping the fan base happy, make him see that he is underestimated how all of his fan base feels,” Hill wrote on Twitter, adding that “paying customers” should “boycott” Jones’ advertisers.