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ESPN’s Rachel Nichols secretly recorded in hotel room in creepy sabotage attempt
ESPN host Rachel Nichols was secretly recorded having a private conversation about the network’s personnel matters while in her Florida hotel room, according to a report. Nichols, the 46-year-old host of ESPN’s “The Jump,” was surreptitiously taped in four videos that appeared to be a cellphone recording of a video feed, Deadspin reports. Nichols, whose …
ESPN host Rachel Nichols was secretly recorded having a private conversation about the network’s personnel matters while in her Florida hotel room, according to a report.
Nichols, the 46-year-old host of ESPN’s “The Jump,” was surreptitiously taped in four videos that appeared to be a cellphone recording of a video feed, Deadspin reports.
Nichols, whose face wasn’t shown on the footage, was talking to an unidentified man about several topics at ESPN, including her career, other staffers and details of the network’s upcoming coverage of the NBA Finals as the league preps its restart at Walt Disney World in Orlando, according to the report.
The footage appears to be from a video feed streaming out of Nichols’ hotel room there — and she was “clearly unaware” that she was being filmed as she spoke on the phone.
In all, four videos were sent anonymously to a Deadspin reporter late Tuesday. Sources told the outlet that an unidentified ESPN employee started recording the video feed on a phone before sending it out to others at the network.
It’s unclear, however, if any ESPN employee sent the four video segments to Deadspin’s reporter, the outlet said late Wednesday.
Both Florida and Connecticut, which is the home to ESPN’s Bristol headquarters, are two-party consent states, meaning both participants must agree to being recorded — meaning that the person who recorded the call may have committed a crime.
In a statement, ESPN said it was “extremely disappointed” by the leak.
“It’s indefensible and an intrusion on Rachel’s privacy,” ESPN told Deadspin. “As for the substance of the conversation, it is not reflective of our decision-making on staffing assignments for the NBA, which has largely been driven by the circumstances of the pandemic.”
The videos were sent to Deadspin “as an attempt” to discredit Nichols and portray her as a “back-stabber,” an anonymous source told Deadspin in a text message.
The incident marks the second time a high-profile female ESPN employee has been secretly recorded while in a hotel room.
In 2008, Erin Andrews was secretly recorded by a man as she undressed in hotel rooms in Nashville and Milwaukee. Michael David Barrett, then 46, was arrested a year later and was ultimately sentenced to more than two years in prison.
