Sports journalist Sage Steele, who recently quit ESPN after 16 years, claims the late Barbara Walters assaulted her backstage at “The View.”
“It was Barbara, Whoopi [Goldberg] and myself in the dark green room off to the side,” Steele said during an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show” Thursday. “I was probably about four feet from the wall and the trash can, and Barbara was standing over here in front of me. She just started to back up toward me and looked at me and got close and elbowed me, and it pushed me back into the wall and the trash can. I was like, ‘What did [she] just do to me? This 140-year-old woman just tried to like tackle me.'”
She continued: “Some of the producers saw it. Whoopi saw it. And Whoopi was like, ‘Come here.’ She was great. She pulled me aside in her little area and she’s like, ‘Don’t you let her do it.’ And I’m like, ‘Am I in a movie right now?’ One of the legends in this industry just tried to beat me up!”
Walters, who died from natural causes at age 93 in December, suffered from dementia in her final years on the ABC daytime talk show.
READ ALSO: Sage Steele dragged on Twitter for saying Obama’s Black father was ‘nowhere around’
The incident happened after Steele made comments about former President Barack Obama on Jay Cutler’s podcast.
She said Obama’s choice to identify as Black was “fascinating, considering his Black dad was nowhere to be found.”
Steele, who joined ESPN in 2007, was suspended by the Disney-owned network in 2021 for her Obama comments and her comments about the COVID mRNA vaccine.
She left ESPN this week after settling a lawsuit stemming from her suspension.
“Having successfully settled my case with ESPN/Disney, I have decided to leave so I can exercise my first amendment rights more freely,” she tweeted on Tuesday. “I am grateful for so many wonderful experiences over the past 16 years and am excited for my next chapter!”
