May 1, 2023 • 49 mins
A memoir is a literary example of being, “Naked” and expressing your story to the page. Jemele Hill recently released her memoir, “Uphill” and she doesn’t hold back, but sometimes truth comes at a cost. They say the truth doesn’t have a temperature, but some of her family members (one in particular) was pretty heated over the stories Hill decided to tell in her debut book. In this episode we discuss the aftermath of living your truth, sharing your story, and being bold enough to do so. Hill has consistently exhibited her bravery by standing by her words and opinions and you can expect nothing less from her book or this conversation.
Learn More: Jemele Hill
About the book: Uphill: A Memoir by Jemele Hill
Connect: @CariChampion @JemeleHill
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
So I've never gone through a situation or going through
the period where I did not want to know my
father or did not want him to necessarily, you know,
be in my life. But I think, as he told me,
the issue he had with the book was that he
wasn't in it enough. And I'm gonna just leave that
one right there, right there.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That was the.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Great journalist, sports analyst, dear friend, political commentator Jamel Hill.
She is on the podcast today and she is talking
about her book Uphill and what Happens after the Fact.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It's the greatest suspension entertainment connective with Carry Champion and
Carrie Chappion is to be a champion a champion and
Carrie Chapion got a champion and Carry Chapion and Carrie
Sheppy Entertainment can Nickie Ward.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to a new season of Naked with
Carrie Champion. You know, this season, as we try every
season to bring you these honest and authentic stories, this season,
I thought it would be nice with some of my guests,
if not most of my guests, to focus on one
particular accomplishment and ask them about it in a sense
of how vulnerable Naked honest they feel about their work,
(01:26):
and that could be anything from a book that they've written,
or perhaps if they are a professor or class that
they've created, if they're an actor, a movie that they've started,
if you're an athlete, what you do in your routine.
And so this week I have the wonderful opportunity to
begin season three with a very dear friend of mine.
(01:48):
She's been on the podcast before, about two and a
half years ago when we first started, but a lot
has happened since then. Jamel Hill is now a well,
she's always been a writer, but she wrote a memoir
and it's called Uphill with Jamel Hill. It's her life
story and anyone can obviously go out and get it
and read it. But I know that, and this is
(02:11):
a humble brag of my friends. I know that many
of my friends who write these personal books, these memoirs,
if you will, end up telling me that there's so
much fallout after the fact, and usually the fallout comes
from people who disagree with their version of the truth,
their version of their reality. And I find it fascinating,
(02:34):
because I'm new to the game, the book writing game,
that someone can tell you what they feel about a
book you wrote based on your truth.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
In my mind, you would just read it as what
it is, their truth, and you'd move on. But that's
just not the case.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And it speaks to me about a larger dynamic, a
more important dynamic, probably, and that is the relationship dynamic
that you have with your family and your very very
close friends. I wonder if you've ever had a really
good friend and you lost that friend because you guys
disagreed on the reality of a situation, the truth of
(03:09):
a situation. I had this happen to me most recently
when I went on Top Vision to talk about a
relationship that I had with my mother or how I
remembered growing up. And my mother watches my show all
the time on Amazon Prime. I want all you guys
to go see it Amazon Prime. It's the Carry Champion Show.
It's a sports show on the Sports Talk Network. And
(03:30):
I was telling a story about how I grew up.
My mother was watching and she was like, you didn't
grow up that way. That's just not true. You hurt
my feelings. Why are you saying those things about me?
And then that began a larger discussion with my peers,
my friends like Shamuel Hill, who have shared very honest
and personal things in front of the public eye.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know what was the fallout? And so today she
joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
To talk about her book, how it was received by family,
and how at one point and probably still now at
this point.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Fractured the relationship that she has with her parents. Please
take a listen.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Hopefully you can enjoy, and you can walk away and
say that I've learned something more importantly, go ahead and
get my girls books.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
A champion and carey champion and carey Champion.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
My dear friend Jamel Hill wrote a book and the
book was called Uphill her Memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
What how many I feel like you just wrote it yesterday.
I feel like it just came out yesterday. How long
has it been?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It came out in October. So I ask you this.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I've always wondered, because I have so many people in
my life now currently writing books memoirs, because all my
friends are so amazing and great. What has it been
like the feedback from your family, not from your friends before,
from your family and perhaps those who were in the book.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
The feedback has been largely positive, but there has been
some negatives. My mother really loved the book. She embraced it,
My husband embraced the book. My friends, like my dear
friends like yourself, embraced it and were very, very supportive.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So the majority of people who.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Were in the book, or actually say, the people I'm
still in contact with, because there's people in the book
I'm not in contact with at all, So I wouldn't
know how they embraced the book period, but the majority
of people, they were really supportive. There were some difficulties.
You know, my father, he and I, we've had a
(05:42):
difficult pathway with this book. He initially took his thoughts
on the book to Facebook, which was not good for
our relationship, and I was very troubled by that, to
say the least, trying to I'm trying to use adult
language here. So there was trouble by that his reaction
(06:05):
to the book, and we had some difficult conversations in
the aftermath since then about it. He took some issues
with the book, not necessarily with any accuracy or anything
that I said, because you read the book, Harry, I
was not disparaging of my father at all. I told
what I believe to be the truth about our relationship.
(06:26):
It has been one that has always been an uphill
climb because my father, he was suffering from a heroin addiction.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That created some distance between us.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
We tried to mend that relationship, and it's been an
ongoing process for the majority of my life. It's a
process I've always embraced. So I've never gone through a
situation or gone through the period where I did not
want to know my father or did not want him
to necessarily, you know, be in my life. But I think,
(06:59):
as he told me, the issue he had with the
book was that he wasn't in it enough. And I'm
gonna just leak wow right there, wow wow wow wow
wow wow.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
He told you he wasn't in the book enough. I
thought that he was mad with the accuracy of the book.
He was not, and that was not That was a
plot twist that was not expecting. And I'm gonna just say,
what's obvious. To be in the book more, you have
to be in my life more. Those kind of go
hand in hand, and that is you know there there.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That is not to say that my father has been
absentee my entire life, but there was a stretch where, no,
we did not have a relationship because he was handling
his recovery and in the process of that, and that's
that's fine.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It is.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It is what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And when we got on the pathway to try to
reconnect and get to know one another, it was difficult
because it's hard when during those formative years where you're
supposed to form that bond with parent and that doesn't happen,
or you're just working to try to get to that,
it can be tough. And you know, by that time, I,
(08:10):
you know, my mother, she her first marriage, my stepfather
was I thought he was my actual father, you know,
That's how he embraced me like I was really is.
And I didn't know that that was not my biological father,
and not that my mother hid it from me. It's
just a child just thinking that way. And so yeah,
we our relationship got off to a bit of a
rocky start. It was a little awkward. And this is
(08:31):
what I write about in the book about how awkward
that was to try to get to know your own father.
And I think because the relationship was not that glue
that you experienced with your parents, to try to recreate
that glue as I got older was hard. It was
hard to do, and so so yeah, I mean it.
(08:53):
It has been difficult. The book has been very, very
difficult on our relationship. So when you say it was difficult,
do you mean that he hurt you? Did it hurt
you that he felt like he should have been in
the book more and they facebook to tell people instead
of you.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yes, that did hurt definitely, because.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
If he had any issue with the book, I would
have my assumption would have been he would have come
to me, and as it is, but when that happened,
this is this was kind of the perfect storm of
our relationship sort of going.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Through a fracture. As it was.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I was already feeling like I was doing a lot
to carry the relationship, and in the sense that I
really felt like if I didn't call him, he wouldn't
call me. Like I felt like I was carrying it,
you know, you have those relationships you like, I'm doing
a lot of the work here, and so I was
feeling that away and trying to kind of I was
(09:59):
trying to fight through that part of it, and when
this happened, it was just sort of like, h this
is very eye opening. And I didn't even know about it. Actually,
it was my mother who saw it on Facebook. I
didn't even see it. And you know, Moms was not
pleased at all. You know, I was like to the death,
you know, my.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Ma, Mama is playing around, and so oh she was heated.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
She was on ten about it, and she let him
know and they had a conversation about it independent of
the conversation my father and I had, and I'll just
say some of the tidbits she told me. I was like, boy,
I wish I'd have been a fly on the wall
and that because it was some language being used. So yeah,
(10:44):
she was not happy with that at all because she
thought and especially because some of the things that he
was saying on Facebook. He was the things that he
was talking about on Facebook were things that were not
actually in the book. And he wasn't you know, he
if he would have said on faceboo book like my
my issue is like I wasn't in it enough.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It was it was almost like he was adding his
own footnotes to it. And I was like, what is
happening here?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I think, you know, at least because Ian, my husband,
you know, he already he read his Facebook posts. I
didn't read them, and I asked him, you know, his opinion,
and part of My issue with what my father wrote
on Facebook was that I felt like he was trying
to embarrass my mother and that a lot of what
he said was anger in the sense that he felt
(11:30):
like she was given better treatment in the book than
he was. And I just I just felt that tension
that was there, you know what I'm saying. And I
was like, well, I lived with my mother, my you know,
all of my my childhood growing up, like she raised me,
like it's my mother, Like what do you of course
she was going to prominently factor into the book, and
(11:51):
so yeah, so he was, you know, he was telling
stories about her and saying what I thought to be
something very despair about my stepfather, the man who stepped
in to raise me when you didn't. I thought that
was just I thought it was really really classless. I mean,
that would be the word that I would use to
describe it. And by the time we had a conversation
(12:13):
about it, we didn't have a conversation about it until
around my birthday because he called to wish me a
happy birthday, and I said, oh no, no, before we
get to this happy birthday, we got some other things
that we need to discuss.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And I told him I was unhappy with what he wrote. I,
you know, is his Facebook.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You're free to do what you want. I'm not here
to police your social media. But I just thought that
we could have handled that a lot better and that
we were in a better position in our relationship where
you wouldn't have done something like that. And he did,
you know, he sort of accepted my criticism. He didn't
apologize for it, didn't say that like, oh I regret
doing it or anything like that. He's just like, essentially,
I'm sorry if you feel that way. I was like,
(12:49):
all right, so it is what it is. And so
I just kind of left it there, knowing that we
would pick it back up at some point, but I
wasn't eager to do that because I had to take
some time to process what happened. And then he called
me again and we talked, and this time he actually
did apologize, and he said that he was sorry and
(13:10):
that he had talked it over with you know, people
that he considered, you know, to be counsel for him,
and they all told him that, hey, you and the wrong,
Like if your issue, your issue is that you're not
in the book enough, like that's that's weird, Like that's
you know, and I appreciate whoever was in his life
that told him that he was in the wrong, because,
(13:31):
you know, he apologized, But there were some other things
that were said in that conversation that frankly, I'm still
kind of recovering from, and so in the moment now,
for my own mental health, I've had to put our
relationship on pause.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I have a question because when you tell the story,
it sounds eerily similar to just a broken family story
and trying to be an adult, an adulting parent who
aren't adults. What does it feel like when a family
member betrays you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Well, I think for a lot of people, it's worse
because you do stick by the whole. Okay, it's family,
you know, they this shouldn't this shouldn't happen. But I
think what has happened between me and my father lately
is the symptoms of fractures that have always been there.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So of course it doesn't feel good for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
But at the same time, you know, just sort of
assessing our relationship overall this it hurts in a different
way because our relationship has always been under construction, and
so it's sort of like this is maybe why our
relationship couldn't get beyond what it was is that I
(14:52):
always had a sense of like, this was not a
person that I could really rely on for, you know, emotionally,
certainly not financially, Like that wasn't out of that was
out of the question, Like those things, those sort of
core things that parents are supposed to provide. I did
not feel like that was something that I could rely
on in this relationship. So I managed the relationship according
(15:16):
to what I thought would be proper expectations. And so
I don't know, I guess the the hurtful part isn't
that I'm necessarily hurt.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
The hurt is that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
This relationship, I realize, is something that I've always just
kind of managed, and I'm like, man, I just am
searching for what is the meaning of it? Because I
know the meaning of it in the in the artificial
sense is like this is my father, this is somebody
who had clearly had a very significant role in bringing
(15:53):
me to this planet, and there's an honor in that,
and there's something I will always honor about that. But
in terms of like what our connection actually is, that
is the part where I'm like, I'm not sure that
has ever really been there in a way that is
substantive enough.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do you think and I say this because I'm privy,
but I could be wrong. Do you think that sometimes
family members want to capitalize off of your success, especially
especially with this book and so much attention and you
went on a book tour. Was there this I deserve
(16:34):
to And I don't know if famous is the word,
but I deserve a piece of this pie as well.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, I do think that.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And I don't think that's something that's just limited to family.
I mean, because one of the stranger situation for instance,
yeah and friends, you know, acquaintances. One of the stranger
sort of situations that popped up related to this book
is I discussing the book about how my mother had
(17:02):
an affair with a married man. It is not an
affair she is proud of, and there were some other
financial factors that were you know, involved, and my mother,
you know, I guess to give people the complete backstory
in the context is this was after my mother went
through a very difficult divorce, the only time that you know,
(17:25):
we've ever faced a precarious living situation. Her house that
she had with her first husband was foreclosed on the
house was in her name because she had the better credit,
so she bore the brunt of all the financial damage
that was done in this marriage. And so as a result,
that left our housing situation hanging in the balance.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
My mother did not want to move back in my grandmother.
She did not want to go home.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But she knew of a friend of hers who had
been a previous landlord who owned some property, who is
a married man who you know, said hey, I'll let
you stay in this one of my properties for free,
you know, And then he began to, of course inquire
about a romantic relationship between the two. My mother is
(18:14):
not anything, a very pragmatic person, and in her mind
and again this is not something she's proud of, but
she's just keeping it a hundred is that like, Okay,
so I see that he wants something from me.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I need some place to live.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It just kind of is what it is, right, And
so I write about this dynamic a lot in the
books for people who want to know kind of more
about it. And that person, I guess had been again
this is a mary man. I don't know if he's
still married or not. I actually changed his actual name
in the book because I don't know a situation, and
(18:47):
you know that's between him god and his family. What
went down with him and my mom and so his
one of his children actually reached out to me, and
this was a while ago and was like, oh yeah,
my uh yeah, my dad brags about knowing you all,
you know, and says like, you know, he knew you
(19:08):
when you were growing up and this and that and
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And I'm thinking, like, did he tell you how he
knew me?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I ain't say nothing, right, I'm like my business business tale,
But like I'm just I'm just trying to understand the
thought process of being so thirsty to say that you
knew somebody who's now in the puff and.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Body that yeah, yeah that you're like that this was
a part of your extramarrital affair. My man, Like what
are we doing? And you're like that is great, Yeah,
you're telling your children what this is that I your
mom and I had you had an affair of my mom. No,
you know they knew. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I don't think she knew because like I'm just you know,
maybe I'm I'm stepping into it, like from if I
were in their shoes. But if like, if that were me,
you know, if I found out, oh, you know my
like my mother like was had an affair with somebody famous,
I'm not going to reach out to it be like,
oh my mama said she knew you, Like what, Like,
(20:09):
I'm not doing that right, that's insane. So my only
assumption is that same exactly. But oh, my only assumption
is that he never told his children or no, he
never said what the relationship was because he could always
just say, oh, she used to be attendant in one
of my buildings. He could always say that, yeah, like
he doesn't have to say what the dynamic actually is.
(20:31):
But I still think that's wild that you would be
going around bragging about knowing me when you know how
you knew me because you were around my mom. That's
how I knew who you were. Like, it was like,
this is crazy, insane.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I hear these stories all the time. My mom would
be like, you remember so and so and it she's
like when you were seven, and I was like, you know,
I don't. She's like, well, they run around telling everybody
they know you and they remember when, and then the
stories are always exaggerated. The reason why I start if
this line of questioning was because there's a lot of me,
a lot of so much of me that wants to
write a book eventually, but I don't want to deal
(21:07):
with the fallout. And there's always fallout, but you still
want to tell your truth, and telling your truth is
so tough because it's your truth and everyone remembers it
so differently. If you had to do something over again,
what would you include in the book that you took
out that was your truth?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, there was one thing that I took out and
I did do it, and I before you asked, no,
I'm not gonna say what it is because I know
you're gonna ask. Yeah, that follow up, and that would
be and the following up, I know how you do
black Diane sawyer, Yes, leaning into it, but no, I
(21:52):
took it out because it was something that did cause
an issue. There was only one thing my mother to
when she read a very very advanced copy of the
book that was in there, and it called We had
quite a disagreement about it. And what was so funny
and I also think was beautiful and a testament to
how our relationship has grown. I was in the mindset of, like, well,
(22:16):
you just gotta be mad, you know what I'm saying,
Like you just gonna have to be angry, and it
just is what it is. And then I thought about
it some more and I was like, Okay, am I
doing this because I really feel like it adds value
to the book and it furthers the story. Or Am
I doing this just to try to prove a point?
And it was more along the lines of like trying
to prove a point, and that's when your pride is talking.
(22:39):
And because then I started to go through, Okay, what
are the ramifications of me putting and leaving this in
this book? And they were gonna be a lot worse
for her, Like I was, it would not have reflected
on me. It would have reflected more on her. And
I know you're like, oh, okay, but you tell such
very private personal things about your mom throughout this book.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
How could this have been in any worse than I shared?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Certainly that was partly my opinion and one of the
reasons why I told her initially I was going forward
with putting forth this information like this ain't even hardly
an adoptee, and of like things that you would be
judged by in this book but it is something that
I think would have opened up a can of worms,
and frankly, I think it would have in many ways
(23:18):
undercut her larger, more inspirational testimony. And so I was like,
I'm going to leave you to tell people that if
that's something you choose to share with them. But she also,
you know, went to some friends in hers and expressed
her concerns about like why she didn't want to in there,
and they told her she was in the wrong, and
they were like, you know, this is her story. It's
(23:40):
not really up to you to determine what's in that.
And I had already decided to take it out, but
she came to me and was like, if you leave
it in there, I'll just deal with the consequences and
it's fine.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So it was sort of like we both we met
in the middle.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
We both saw each other's perspective, and we're ready to
take a course of action to support that. It's just
that I had just made the decision that I'm gonna
leave this out because at the end of the day,
I do want to preserve and have a healthy relationship,
you know, with my mother. And while I don't think
that having that relationship means that I have to sacrifice
or compromise who I am for that.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I didn't actually consider this to be part of that.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Like, I didn't think this added any more to the
story than was already there, and I think it took
away from this story.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
So I was fine with like leaving that out. Hey, everybody,
you gotta take a quick break because I need to
pay bills. We still pay bills on season three.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Back in the moment, Every Champion and Cary Champions to
be a champion, a champion and carry Champion and carry
chap beata Champion and carry Chapion and carry CHAMPI Entertainment
can Nigi.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
We're gonna.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Every Champion and carry Champion is to be a champion,
a champion and Carrie Champion, Nigy a champion.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And carry Champion. Hey, everybody, thank you for listening to
Naked with Carrie Champion.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Jamal Hill is still here and she's giving out free
jewelry as I say, dropping gems.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I hope you enjoy now when you do. Like, there
are so many differences.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I've noticed a lot of people do the we'll write
a book and then they do a follow up, which
is probably what you'll do or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
A follow up would be a book too.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Is there anything that you learned about the writing process
about telling your story? Was it largely cathartic or was
it largely painful bringing up those memories?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean, you know, I guess you could never say never,
and and we know that sometimes that chick can do
a lot of talking to you.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I don't anticipate there will be a follow up to this, okay,
So this is it to cut you sliding down hill
Part two the right.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Right exactly like Oh remember I said it was gonna
be a part two. Wow, the publisher decided up, but no, I.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Wrote it. The reason I wrote it as honestly and
was this raw in.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
This book was because there is no part too, or
at least I went into it with that mentality.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
But I learned a lot about the writing process itself.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
One I think I took this for granted as a journalist,
because you're as a print journalist.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I'm used to working on deadline and so you know,
how we write with our hair on fire all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It's sometimes it's not very discipline how we approach a
story and writing.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Because we do it, I feel and it can be
quite a process.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
This really drove home how much writing is a discipline,
and I realized how undisciplined of a writer that I
really am, because I write what I feel like it generally, like,
even if I know I have a story due on Friday,
I may wait till Friday at two am to write
the story.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I'll crack it out. It'll be great, it'll get done.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But I'm just used to kind of going to my
own clock to finish something, and you can't do a
book like that. And Walter Mosley gave me the best advice,
the very prolific author, Walter Mosley, and he told me,
you know something he practices is that no matter where
he is in the world, he writes for at least
two hours a day. He sets the schedule, writes during
(27:24):
that time. Whether it's great trash, doesn't matter, he's writing.
And that advice was really very life changing for me
for this book, because I wasn't on the writing schedule
before I had that conversation with Walter Mosley. And finally
I said, you know what, He's right, like, I gotta
stop haphazardly doing this because you know, to give a writer,
(27:46):
especially a career journalist a deadline that says like, oh,
you know, it's January. They talk about your first draft
is in due till like October. I'm like, you, guys,
don't know who you're talking to. Like now, that was
the wrong thing to tell on me, all right, because
God knows I'm away to September twenty ninth to start this.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I was like, what, no, Heart, I'll write my books
Optimber twenty ninth.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Give you a draft, smart exactly, exactly exactly my life. Hey,
give me that kind of draft of my life. Stir.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Because what I was doing, though, what I was doing, Carrie,
is that I would be writing for I would write
NonStop for like a week straight, turn out fifty pages,
and it wouldn't write again for like another month.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Like it was like, I can't do that, right, So
I put myself out of schedule. It worked masterfully. That
is how I got the manuscript finished. Is by doing that.
I had to buckle down and give myself hardcore times.
Usually in the morning. I wrote a lot to Gray's
Anatomy and this is us And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay, Auntie, I love this for you, all right, you'll
never Okay, I do want to say this. Then this
is just a full endorsement. You guys going get the book.
It is really truly it's inspirational and it's honest. It's naked.
And I saw the other day. This is when it
really hit home to me that you just never know
who's listening and watching. And I didn't know if you
(29:13):
knew this, but I saw that JR. Smith, retired basketball
player in the middle of an involvement process himself, tweeted
about how he listened it to your book as he
drove from Florida back to LA I believe, how'd that
make you feel great?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I mean, you had asked me earlier about the response,
and I don't think I answered that question effectively enough.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It's like the response has been tremendous.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And there's no greater delight that I get as an
author when people come up to me and say, hey,
I read your book and this is what I took
away from it. And it allows us to have like
kind of a quick but somewhat personal, you know, conversation,
and you never know where your book shows up either,
and JR.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Smith's a great testament to that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Like there's been so much unexpected praise that I've received
from it. Because when you put out something that is
this personal, that you are really bearing your soul and
you're exposing yourself your family, like the things that you
have gone through, you never know how that's going to
be received.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And typically because I've.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Been writing for such a long time, but I've been
writing about other people for such a long time. So
when people respond negatively to something I've written in the
Atlantic or when I was at ESPN dot com or
when I had a newspaper career, it didn't hit the
same because it was like they just disagreed. So what
it's a bunch of people that agree or I don't
really care because the writing. While I took pride in
what I wrote, it wasn't as personal because I'm writing
(30:39):
about something else.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
This is personal. So if somebody is like, I don't
like your book, or you know, I feel that sort
of sinse.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Of rejection, it's gonna hurt. My feeling is because you're
saying you don't like me, you don't like my life.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It's what you're saying. So it's gotta hit a little
bit different. You know with JR.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
That I know.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I shouldn't. It shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I should be at this big age, I should be
further along in my emotional development. But it's hard because
it is writing is very personal, and this kind of
writing about a memoir is extremely personal.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
So when I saw the JR.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Smith said that, I was like, oh my god, like that,
because one he is not somebody I would have expected
to pick up my book at all, So for him
to say that, I was like, Oh my goodness, like, JR.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Smith, Okay, that's a great, a really really great endorsement.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And even some of my friends who I know, we all,
like you said, you have a lot of friends who
have written books, and it gets hard sometimes because the
rate in which we turn a knee suckers out.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It makes it hard to keep up with him.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
But I tried to very intentionally read all of my
friend's books, and it is hard to do and it
may take me a while to do it, but I
always circle back when I've read it and say, hey,
I really enjoyed your book and this is why. And
I try to be Smith because I know what that
means as an author. So if you read the book
and you don't like it, please don't tell me, because
(32:07):
clearly I'm dealing with very precarious self esteem here as.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It relates to this book.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
You. I think a lot of people thought you were
going to write about Donald Trump and in a very intimate,
probably more detailed, much more substantial way of the book,
and you didn't make it purposefully a part of your book.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
In that way. I wonder when you talked about people the.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Donald Trump incident and ESPN, did you lose any relationships?
You said your I talked about family members, But what
relationships did you lose and or gain because of what
you route about in your truth anyway? But by way
of background, can you tell everybody what happened? It's not
like they're under a rock. But when you left us ESPN,
(32:56):
it was due in large part because Donald Trump was
coming after you, and he made your life uncomfortable at
a network that was unwilling to stand up for what
was what I believe, what was right.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, ooh, you summed that up pretty nicely.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
But yeah, I mean in twenty seventeen, I created a
bit of an international situation when I criticized the President
on Twitter and called him a white supremacist and a bigot.
And said he was unfit for office, and yes I did.
It was shocking, shocking at the time, and that went
(33:30):
all the way up to the White House because the
Press secretary at the time, Sara Huckabee Sanders, now the
governor of Arkansas, a job I'm sure she'll be equally
terrible at she said that what I said was fireable.
Donald Donald Trump said I owed him an apology. He
also said I deserved to be fired, and that I
was dragging ESPN's ratings down.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
It was a whole big thing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And ESPN when the President came after me, they were
they were silent, they didn't say anything, and so I
was very disappointed in their reaction. This is an incident
that I detail in the book. Obviously in my time
at ESPN period, I mean, I was there for twelve years.
But what I didn't want, because I feel this way
(34:13):
in general, is like I don't want if Donald Trump
is in the first paragraph of my obituary, I will
have failed. And that is always how I saw our
unfortunate connection, is that I don't want to be a part.
I don't want him to be a part of my narrative.
I mean, it's a part of a story that's told,
but he's not a part of my personal narrative, and
(34:36):
I wanted to be sure, or I wanted to make
sure that ESPN did not absorb so much of my story.
It was twelve years of my life, and that's a
significant amount of time. It is the longest job that
I've ever had. But I didn't want the book to
be about ESPN. I wanted it to be just about
my time at ESPN as a part of a larger
(34:59):
piece within my story, because there was so much more
that I'd lived and experienced, and so that was very intentional.
That's why ESPN's at the back of the book. So
if you look at for all the ESPN stuff, it's
like in the last three or four chapters. If if
it's that important to you now. In terms of how
people at ESPN viewed the book, I don't know. I mean,
(35:22):
I mean, I don't I've heard from you know. The
person I heard from was John Skippers, the former president
of ESPN. He read the book and as he texted me,
he said, I was far kinder to him than he deserved,
and I appreciated them. Yeah, we worked together, so we're
(35:44):
you know, we well we were able to repair our
relationship because it was a really good one before that
all happened. And so he went through some personal struggles
as people know, and you know, eventually left ESPN himself.
He left before before I did, and so there's you
know that that fits had long ago mended. But in
(36:06):
terms of like the people that I wrote about from ESPN,
I have no idea how they felt about the book. Obviously,
whatever it was, it en pissed them off enough to
talk to call me and tell me, or you know,
maybe they just felt kind of like indifferent to it.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So I have no idea. But I didn't write it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
With the intention of getting any sort of reaction from
them anyway, So it just kind of I think they
probably put it in the camp of it kind of
is what it is that find it.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Interesting because I do believe that, well, I'm glad no
one said anything to you, and it sounds like to
me that it's that they didn't have enough guts to
even if they did. They couldn't challenge your truth because
one is your truth. But when you really call people out,
they you know, they can't take issue with what you
have said. If there are receipts I wonder if there
(36:57):
was a relationship that you could mend in addition to
John Skipper you were able to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Is there any other relationships that you had while working
there that you would like, that you would want to
mend or change?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I hope that people, I mean people that are there
like should realize like I don't hold any animosity toward
ESPN at all, Like I think professionally, it was wonderful
for my career, and it really being there and being
on the mini platforms that they have really did teach
me how to be a better journalist. And so I
(37:32):
am grateful for the time that I had there. But
it was very much a It's a conditional relationship, just
like it is with any employer. Like you provide a service,
they pay you to do that service, and then when
that time comes, and often when that time comes, usually
it's not within your control. I was looking enough to
leave on my own terms, and so no, I don't
(37:55):
have any animosity toward there. And so the relationships that
I'm wanted to maintain with people who are at ESPN,
I maintained those because I considered them to be true friends.
The ones that I didn't I didn't because I didn't
feel like I felt like our time was done. You know,
there's some people there who I feel like that I
(38:17):
consider to be very disingenuous, and I don't I didn't
really sort of appreciate their professional capacities and some of
the decisions they made that impacted my career. Like I mean,
like we ain't gonna never see out of eye and
I don't, you know, we don't have to really fuck
(38:39):
with each other like that. So it's that that's fine,
but I don't you know, no, no, ILL will not
towards you know, like I'm working with them again with
this Kaepernick documentary, So obviously I don't have a issue
working with the network.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I have an issue with how certain people made some decisions.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
But you know, other than that, I mean, I consider
that to be part of sort of corporate politics protocol.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So yeah, no attics, how they move. Yeah, yeah, that's
what it is. It's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
It happens that every place I've worked, the ESPN is
not unique in that in that situation.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Every champion and carry champion is to be a champion,
a champion and carry champion, and Cary Chap beat a
champion and carry chappion and carry chap.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Entertainment. Can naked weirder.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Kerry champion and carry champion is to be a champion,
a champion and carry champion champion and carry champion and
carried chapientertainment.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Get naked word Yeah on the outside looking in.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And because I know this intimately, I think that you
are living a far more free life. And that means
you can say, you can do, You can come and
go as you please, You can tweet freely, You could
do all the things you call if if you chose to,
you can call Trump any name that you felt were appropriate.
And by the way, saying that in twenty seventeen was
so new. Now it's just like saying what you thought
(40:05):
you were saying, water is wet. So I'm curious about
life now for you. You wrote a book, you started
a production company. You are here eping to Colin Kaepernick
dot that will be on ESPN executive producer, I think
by Spike Lee. And you have been able to accomplish
(40:26):
so much. You had a network at Spotify, you have
all these different things. Is there something else that's still
out there that you want to do? How do you
see your career trajectory going now or you just take
it as it comes.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So I do think I've gotten some clarity recently, and
I guess as just as a matter of slight correction.
Is like Spike Lee's directing, I'm executive producing.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Oh bye bye bad, Yes, my bad, Spike Lee's the director,
Jamel's EP.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Right, I would be god is So I thought you were, well,
I'm not directing. I mean, I I appreciate that though,
carry I was like, you know, I appreciate you putting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Me in that seat.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Not yet, not yet, okay, which I mean, it's it's
it was a very timely slip because you know, I
have recently been presented with some opportunities to direct, and
I think one project in particular, I think I'm gonna
take them up on it.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And so I think that is something that is definitely, Yeah,
that's definitely in my future, is directing. So breaking, I
would say, breaking news? Is it now? She about to
take over Gina's possition?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Okay, No, I don't know about all that, you know,
and I just say anything about you know more on
the documentary side. Let me let me get my let
me get my feet wet, let me get my feet wet. Okay,
I'm not I'm not quite ready for a feature film
at this point.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
But king okay, Regina, King, Okay, let me stop.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
But and I do think that there's still a television
play for me out there as well. You know, I've
been meeting with some folks recently to talk about, you know,
sort of returning to to television, to sports in particular.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
So uh So I think I will.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
I think I will get back in the mix with
things there because there are parts of it that I
miss about being able to to talk about sports, and
not just about the heaviness of sports, but about the
likeness of sports, the things, you know, the the actual
games and the the people and the drama and the
and the things that we love about sports. There there
are still, you know, a part of me that that
(42:46):
wants to be in on that conversation. So uh I
think over the next two years that there would be
a focus on that, and I think my work behind
the camera is probably good to get a lot more intense.
So those are the things immediately I see on the horizon.
And something I just spoken to, I spoken to existence
(43:10):
like just a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I want to retire early.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I really do, Like I didn't realize how much I
wanted to do this until recently about retire early. As
we know, we have the kind of jobs because it's
not physical labor, even though it can be taxing on
you physically, and says say, you know, the tiredness, the
emotional and mental drain. But I don't want to be
(43:35):
doing this for like another thirty years. There's some people
in our profession who like they gonna be at that
anchor desk. They gonna die at anchor desks. I'm like that,
that is not gonna be my testimony. That is not.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
So now. It's about like doing you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
It's about doing the things I really love to do
and am passionate about. I'm gonna go hard like the
next probably seven to ten years, and after that I
think I'm gonna be done.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I think I will be done. So I got to
tend your window.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Dear Father, God, God, I'd like to say a prayer
right now, Dear heavily Father, if you were listening to
me and my sister Jamel, we would like an early retirement,
and Jesus the same we prayed.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Amen. I just thought I had manifest that with you
as well, because I too.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I touch it agree, I touch and agree, such and
agree went to Gabba in his name, Father God. You
know what I'm saying, Bring us home, deacon his carry,
bring us home. Amen. Oh no, okay, I do love
that for you.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I have.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
There is something about our generation specifically. I was just
talked to my best friend Kendre about this. She was like, oh, no,
I'm retiring early. And my mother was like, you can't
do that.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I was like, no, no, no, we can. It's this.
We are like, we're done. We did it. We did that.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
I want to be a lady of leisure. I have
no problem of being a lady of leisure. I do
it quite well.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
What would you do? I mean, I take a project
here and there, But what would you do in retirement? Well,
and not only that, we got to think about it
this way.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Most of us, you know, most of your friends, we've
been working since we were six.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
So it's like we don't laurel a lot of time,
child labor, child labor.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
What I'm saying, I've been working since I was thirteen
years old, and I don't say that like that makes
me in any way special.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
But that's a long ass time, Like I'm over.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Twel my je it's wow, yeah, hi twelve by gee,
I've been working since I was twelve.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
I'm out of here. We did our fifty years almost,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I was like, it's gotta be a cutoff because when
I retire, Yeah, when I retire, I want to retire
at an age where I could I could still be
be sprit out here in these streets, where I could
gallivant still.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You know what I mean? Girl, So I cannot.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
I need to still be out here getting my high
girl Auntie on retired you, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I don't want it. I don't want it. So what
do you want to do? What do you think you
want to do when you retire?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
I say that, but then I wonder people, I wonder
if people like us who are constantly stimulated or looking
to be stimulated outside of just normal discourse and books,
what do you do?
Speaker 2 (46:20):
So you know, I really would love to live on
a beach somewhere.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
And well, honestly, I guess I should put retire in
air quotes because I will always write and so like,
if I could retire and just write books. Oh my god,
sign me up for that life any day, live on
the beach, drink camrabal tea every morning.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And whiskey at night. Like that, that is that is
my life.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Okay, you know me and my husband old sent up
there playing scrabble and uh watching Jeopardy every night.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yet that that is my life. Okay. I love that
for you. I love that for you. I wish that
for you. I want everybody to go out and get
my friend's book. It is really special.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And even when you're like at an airport, maybe do
it then, because sometimes she randomly just goes into an
airport and just start signing books. So go get a
signed copy, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
What I mean. I love that you do that.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I look for your book every single bookstore I go to,
especially being on the East Coast, there's so many bookstores.
I look every single I look. I take a picture
of all. It's just a blessing. Your friends write books,
is what I should call this podcast, because it's a
blessing to go in and see all my friends.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Right. But I'm like, that's my friend's book, that's my
friend's book, that's my first book. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It's an amazing thing, and it's an amazing accomplishment, and
I just want you not to lose sight of that,
because in fact, so many of our people do have books.
With that being said, I appreciate you joining me on
the Naked podcast. Is there anything people should be looking
forward to or supporting outside of getting your book?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Oh? Well, well, I guess Speaking of the book, the
paperback is coming out this October, So if for some
reason you have a version of hercover books, the paperback
will be out in the fall. And of course for
all of those who prefer the audio version, as JR.
Smith clearly does, then I did do my own audiobook,
so you'd have to put up with my voice for
a couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
But yeah, make sure that you get the book wherever
books are sold.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Hey, everybody, I hope you all enjoyed the very first
episode of season three of Naked with Carrie Champion. It
is still my pleasure and my honor to give you
guys these very truthful stories. I hope you learned something
I really do. And I got to give a shout
out to my girl Jamal because she really got naked.
She didn't have on no clothes, no bra, no panny,
no nothing. She telling all the business and it's hard
(48:36):
to do that, but it does remind me when you
talk about tough things. It takes away shame, it takes
away pain, It takes away all those ingredients that make
you keep secrets because secrets are powerful.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
And I hope again you learned something today. Go out
and work on a relationship.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Make it better, leave it alone, pick it up, put
it down, do something, but just be naked.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
I appreciate you. Off of listening, and I'll talk to
you next week.
So I've never gone through a situation or going through
the period where I did not want to know my
father or did not want him to necessarily, you know,
be in my life. But I think, as he told me,
the issue he had with the book was that he
wasn't in it enough. And I'm gonna just leave that
one right there, right there.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That was the.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Great journalist, sports analyst, dear friend, political commentator Jamel Hill.
She is on the podcast today and she is talking
about her book Uphill and what Happens after the Fact.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It's the greatest suspension entertainment connective with Carry Champion and
Carrie Chappion is to be a champion a champion and
Carrie Chapion got a champion and Carry Chapion and Carrie
Sheppy Entertainment can Nickie Ward.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to a new season of Naked with
Carrie Champion. You know, this season, as we try every
season to bring you these honest and authentic stories, this season,
I thought it would be nice with some of my guests,
if not most of my guests, to focus on one
particular accomplishment and ask them about it in a sense
of how vulnerable Naked honest they feel about their work,
(01:26):
and that could be anything from a book that they've written,
or perhaps if they are a professor or class that
they've created, if they're an actor, a movie that they've started,
if you're an athlete, what you do in your routine.
And so this week I have the wonderful opportunity to
begin season three with a very dear friend of mine.
(01:48):
She's been on the podcast before, about two and a
half years ago when we first started, but a lot
has happened since then. Jamel Hill is now a well,
she's always been a writer, but she wrote a memoir
and it's called Uphill with Jamel Hill. It's her life
story and anyone can obviously go out and get it
and read it. But I know that, and this is
(02:11):
a humble brag of my friends. I know that many
of my friends who write these personal books, these memoirs,
if you will, end up telling me that there's so
much fallout after the fact, and usually the fallout comes
from people who disagree with their version of the truth,
their version of their reality. And I find it fascinating,
(02:34):
because I'm new to the game, the book writing game,
that someone can tell you what they feel about a
book you wrote based on your truth.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
In my mind, you would just read it as what
it is, their truth, and you'd move on. But that's
just not the case.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
And it speaks to me about a larger dynamic, a
more important dynamic, probably, and that is the relationship dynamic
that you have with your family and your very very
close friends. I wonder if you've ever had a really
good friend and you lost that friend because you guys
disagreed on the reality of a situation, the truth of
(03:09):
a situation. I had this happen to me most recently
when I went on Top Vision to talk about a
relationship that I had with my mother or how I
remembered growing up. And my mother watches my show all
the time on Amazon Prime. I want all you guys
to go see it Amazon Prime. It's the Carry Champion Show.
It's a sports show on the Sports Talk Network. And
(03:30):
I was telling a story about how I grew up.
My mother was watching and she was like, you didn't
grow up that way. That's just not true. You hurt
my feelings. Why are you saying those things about me?
And then that began a larger discussion with my peers,
my friends like Shamuel Hill, who have shared very honest
and personal things in front of the public eye.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know what was the fallout? And so today she
joins us on the podcast.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
To talk about her book, how it was received by family,
and how at one point and probably still now at
this point.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Fractured the relationship that she has with her parents. Please
take a listen.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Hopefully you can enjoy, and you can walk away and
say that I've learned something more importantly, go ahead and
get my girls books.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
A champion and carey champion and carey Champion.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
My dear friend Jamel Hill wrote a book and the
book was called Uphill her Memoir.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
And here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
What how many I feel like you just wrote it yesterday.
I feel like it just came out yesterday. How long
has it been?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It came out in October. So I ask you this.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
I've always wondered, because I have so many people in
my life now currently writing books memoirs, because all my
friends are so amazing and great. What has it been
like the feedback from your family, not from your friends before,
from your family and perhaps those who were in the book.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
The feedback has been largely positive, but there has been
some negatives. My mother really loved the book. She embraced it,
My husband embraced the book. My friends, like my dear
friends like yourself, embraced it and were very, very supportive.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So the majority of people who.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Were in the book, or actually say, the people I'm
still in contact with, because there's people in the book
I'm not in contact with at all, So I wouldn't
know how they embraced the book period, but the majority
of people, they were really supportive. There were some difficulties.
You know, my father, he and I, we've had a
(05:42):
difficult pathway with this book. He initially took his thoughts
on the book to Facebook, which was not good for
our relationship, and I was very troubled by that, to
say the least, trying to I'm trying to use adult
language here. So there was trouble by that his reaction
(06:05):
to the book, and we had some difficult conversations in
the aftermath since then about it. He took some issues
with the book, not necessarily with any accuracy or anything
that I said, because you read the book, Harry, I
was not disparaging of my father at all. I told
what I believe to be the truth about our relationship.
(06:26):
It has been one that has always been an uphill
climb because my father, he was suffering from a heroin addiction.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That created some distance between us.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
We tried to mend that relationship, and it's been an
ongoing process for the majority of my life. It's a
process I've always embraced. So I've never gone through a
situation or gone through the period where I did not
want to know my father or did not want him
to necessarily, you know, be in my life. But I think,
(06:59):
as he told me, the issue he had with the
book was that he wasn't in it enough. And I'm
gonna just leak wow right there, wow wow wow wow
wow wow.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
He told you he wasn't in the book enough. I
thought that he was mad with the accuracy of the book.
He was not, and that was not That was a
plot twist that was not expecting. And I'm gonna just say,
what's obvious. To be in the book more, you have
to be in my life more. Those kind of go
hand in hand, and that is you know there there.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
That is not to say that my father has been
absentee my entire life, but there was a stretch where, no,
we did not have a relationship because he was handling
his recovery and in the process of that, and that's
that's fine.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It is.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It is what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
And when we got on the pathway to try to
reconnect and get to know one another, it was difficult
because it's hard when during those formative years where you're
supposed to form that bond with parent and that doesn't happen,
or you're just working to try to get to that,
it can be tough. And you know, by that time, I,
(08:10):
you know, my mother, she her first marriage, my stepfather
was I thought he was my actual father, you know,
That's how he embraced me like I was really is.
And I didn't know that that was not my biological father,
and not that my mother hid it from me. It's
just a child just thinking that way. And so yeah,
we our relationship got off to a bit of a
rocky start. It was a little awkward. And this is
(08:31):
what I write about in the book about how awkward
that was to try to get to know your own father.
And I think because the relationship was not that glue
that you experienced with your parents, to try to recreate
that glue as I got older was hard. It was
hard to do, and so so yeah, I mean it.
(08:53):
It has been difficult. The book has been very, very
difficult on our relationship. So when you say it was difficult,
do you mean that he hurt you? Did it hurt
you that he felt like he should have been in
the book more and they facebook to tell people instead
of you.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yes, that did hurt definitely, because.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
If he had any issue with the book, I would
have my assumption would have been he would have come
to me, and as it is, but when that happened,
this is this was kind of the perfect storm of
our relationship sort of going.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Through a fracture. As it was.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I was already feeling like I was doing a lot
to carry the relationship, and in the sense that I
really felt like if I didn't call him, he wouldn't
call me. Like I felt like I was carrying it,
you know, you have those relationships you like, I'm doing
a lot of the work here, and so I was
feeling that away and trying to kind of I was
(09:59):
trying to fight through that part of it, and when
this happened, it was just sort of like, h this
is very eye opening. And I didn't even know about it. Actually,
it was my mother who saw it on Facebook. I
didn't even see it. And you know, Moms was not
pleased at all. You know, I was like to the death,
you know, my.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Ma, Mama is playing around, and so oh she was heated.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
She was on ten about it, and she let him
know and they had a conversation about it independent of
the conversation my father and I had, and I'll just
say some of the tidbits she told me. I was like, boy,
I wish I'd have been a fly on the wall
and that because it was some language being used. So yeah,
(10:44):
she was not happy with that at all because she
thought and especially because some of the things that he
was saying on Facebook. He was the things that he
was talking about on Facebook were things that were not
actually in the book. And he wasn't you know, he
if he would have said on faceboo book like my
my issue is like I wasn't in it enough.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
It was it was almost like he was adding his
own footnotes to it. And I was like, what is
happening here?
Speaker 1 (11:08):
And I think, you know, at least because Ian, my husband,
you know, he already he read his Facebook posts. I
didn't read them, and I asked him, you know, his opinion,
and part of My issue with what my father wrote
on Facebook was that I felt like he was trying
to embarrass my mother and that a lot of what
he said was anger in the sense that he felt
(11:30):
like she was given better treatment in the book than
he was. And I just I just felt that tension
that was there, you know what I'm saying. And I
was like, well, I lived with my mother, my you know,
all of my my childhood growing up, like she raised me,
like it's my mother, Like what do you of course
she was going to prominently factor into the book, and
(11:51):
so yeah, so he was, you know, he was telling
stories about her and saying what I thought to be
something very despair about my stepfather, the man who stepped
in to raise me when you didn't. I thought that
was just I thought it was really really classless. I mean,
that would be the word that I would use to
describe it. And by the time we had a conversation
(12:13):
about it, we didn't have a conversation about it until
around my birthday because he called to wish me a
happy birthday, and I said, oh no, no, before we
get to this happy birthday, we got some other things
that we need to discuss.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And I told him I was unhappy with what he wrote. I,
you know, is his Facebook.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
You're free to do what you want. I'm not here
to police your social media. But I just thought that
we could have handled that a lot better and that
we were in a better position in our relationship where
you wouldn't have done something like that. And he did,
you know, he sort of accepted my criticism. He didn't
apologize for it, didn't say that like, oh I regret
doing it or anything like that. He's just like, essentially,
I'm sorry if you feel that way. I was like,
(12:49):
all right, so it is what it is. And so
I just kind of left it there, knowing that we
would pick it back up at some point, but I
wasn't eager to do that because I had to take
some time to process what happened. And then he called
me again and we talked, and this time he actually
did apologize, and he said that he was sorry and
(13:10):
that he had talked it over with you know, people
that he considered, you know, to be counsel for him,
and they all told him that, hey, you and the wrong,
Like if your issue, your issue is that you're not
in the book enough, like that's that's weird, Like that's
you know, and I appreciate whoever was in his life
that told him that he was in the wrong, because,
(13:31):
you know, he apologized, But there were some other things
that were said in that conversation that frankly, I'm still
kind of recovering from, and so in the moment now,
for my own mental health, I've had to put our
relationship on pause.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
I have a question because when you tell the story,
it sounds eerily similar to just a broken family story
and trying to be an adult, an adulting parent who
aren't adults. What does it feel like when a family
member betrays you.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Well, I think for a lot of people, it's worse
because you do stick by the whole. Okay, it's family,
you know, they this shouldn't this shouldn't happen. But I
think what has happened between me and my father lately
is the symptoms of fractures that have always been there.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
So of course it doesn't feel good for that to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
But at the same time, you know, just sort of
assessing our relationship overall this it hurts in a different
way because our relationship has always been under construction, and
so it's sort of like this is maybe why our
relationship couldn't get beyond what it was is that I
(14:52):
always had a sense of like, this was not a
person that I could really rely on for, you know, emotionally,
certainly not financially, Like that wasn't out of that was
out of the question, Like those things, those sort of
core things that parents are supposed to provide. I did
not feel like that was something that I could rely
on in this relationship. So I managed the relationship according
(15:16):
to what I thought would be proper expectations. And so
I don't know, I guess the the hurtful part isn't
that I'm necessarily hurt.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
The hurt is that.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
This relationship, I realize, is something that I've always just
kind of managed, and I'm like, man, I just am
searching for what is the meaning of it? Because I
know the meaning of it in the in the artificial
sense is like this is my father, this is somebody
who had clearly had a very significant role in bringing
(15:53):
me to this planet, and there's an honor in that,
and there's something I will always honor about that. But
in terms of like what our connection actually is, that
is the part where I'm like, I'm not sure that
has ever really been there in a way that is
substantive enough.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Do you think and I say this because I'm privy,
but I could be wrong. Do you think that sometimes
family members want to capitalize off of your success, especially
especially with this book and so much attention and you
went on a book tour. Was there this I deserve
(16:34):
to And I don't know if famous is the word,
but I deserve a piece of this pie as well.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, I do think that.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
And I don't think that's something that's just limited to family.
I mean, because one of the stranger situation for instance,
yeah and friends, you know, acquaintances. One of the stranger
sort of situations that popped up related to this book
is I discussing the book about how my mother had
(17:02):
an affair with a married man. It is not an
affair she is proud of, and there were some other
financial factors that were you know, involved, and my mother,
you know, I guess to give people the complete backstory
in the context is this was after my mother went
through a very difficult divorce, the only time that you know,
(17:25):
we've ever faced a precarious living situation. Her house that
she had with her first husband was foreclosed on the
house was in her name because she had the better credit,
so she bore the brunt of all the financial damage
that was done in this marriage. And so as a result,
that left our housing situation hanging in the balance.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
My mother did not want to move back in my grandmother.
She did not want to go home.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
But she knew of a friend of hers who had
been a previous landlord who owned some property, who is
a married man who you know, said hey, I'll let
you stay in this one of my properties for free,
you know, And then he began to, of course inquire
about a romantic relationship between the two. My mother is
(18:14):
not anything, a very pragmatic person, and in her mind
and again this is not something she's proud of, but
she's just keeping it a hundred is that like, Okay,
so I see that he wants something from me.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I need some place to live.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
It just kind of is what it is, right, And
so I write about this dynamic a lot in the
books for people who want to know kind of more
about it. And that person, I guess had been again
this is a mary man. I don't know if he's
still married or not. I actually changed his actual name
in the book because I don't know a situation, and
(18:47):
you know that's between him god and his family. What
went down with him and my mom and so his
one of his children actually reached out to me, and
this was a while ago and was like, oh yeah,
my uh yeah, my dad brags about knowing you all,
you know, and says like, you know, he knew you
(19:08):
when you were growing up and this and that and
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
And I'm thinking, like, did he tell you how he
knew me?
Speaker 1 (19:14):
I ain't say nothing, right, I'm like my business business tale,
But like I'm just I'm just trying to understand the
thought process of being so thirsty to say that you
knew somebody who's now in the puff and.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Body that yeah, yeah that you're like that this was
a part of your extramarrital affair. My man, Like what
are we doing? And you're like that is great, Yeah,
you're telling your children what this is that I your
mom and I had you had an affair of my mom. No,
you know they knew. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
I don't think she knew because like I'm just you know,
maybe I'm I'm stepping into it, like from if I
were in their shoes. But if like, if that were me,
you know, if I found out, oh, you know my
like my mother like was had an affair with somebody famous,
I'm not going to reach out to it be like,
oh my mama said she knew you, Like what, Like,
(20:09):
I'm not doing that right, that's insane. So my only
assumption is that same exactly. But oh, my only assumption
is that he never told his children or no, he
never said what the relationship was because he could always
just say, oh, she used to be attendant in one
of my buildings. He could always say that, yeah, like
he doesn't have to say what the dynamic actually is.
(20:31):
But I still think that's wild that you would be
going around bragging about knowing me when you know how
you knew me because you were around my mom. That's
how I knew who you were. Like, it was like,
this is crazy, insane.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
I hear these stories all the time. My mom would
be like, you remember so and so and it she's
like when you were seven, and I was like, you know,
I don't. She's like, well, they run around telling everybody
they know you and they remember when, and then the
stories are always exaggerated. The reason why I start if
this line of questioning was because there's a lot of me,
a lot of so much of me that wants to
write a book eventually, but I don't want to deal
(21:07):
with the fallout. And there's always fallout, but you still
want to tell your truth, and telling your truth is
so tough because it's your truth and everyone remembers it
so differently. If you had to do something over again,
what would you include in the book that you took
out that was your truth?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Well, there was one thing that I took out and
I did do it, and I before you asked, no,
I'm not gonna say what it is because I know
you're gonna ask. Yeah, that follow up, and that would
be and the following up, I know how you do
black Diane sawyer, Yes, leaning into it, but no, I
(21:52):
took it out because it was something that did cause
an issue. There was only one thing my mother to
when she read a very very advanced copy of the
book that was in there, and it called We had
quite a disagreement about it. And what was so funny
and I also think was beautiful and a testament to
how our relationship has grown. I was in the mindset of, like, well,
(22:16):
you just gotta be mad, you know what I'm saying,
Like you just gonna have to be angry, and it
just is what it is. And then I thought about
it some more and I was like, Okay, am I
doing this because I really feel like it adds value
to the book and it furthers the story. Or Am
I doing this just to try to prove a point?
And it was more along the lines of like trying
to prove a point, and that's when your pride is talking.
(22:39):
And because then I started to go through, Okay, what
are the ramifications of me putting and leaving this in
this book? And they were gonna be a lot worse
for her, Like I was, it would not have reflected
on me. It would have reflected more on her. And
I know you're like, oh, okay, but you tell such
very private personal things about your mom throughout this book.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
How could this have been in any worse than I shared?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Certainly that was partly my opinion and one of the
reasons why I told her initially I was going forward
with putting forth this information like this ain't even hardly
an adoptee, and of like things that you would be
judged by in this book but it is something that
I think would have opened up a can of worms,
and frankly, I think it would have in many ways
(23:18):
undercut her larger, more inspirational testimony. And so I was like,
I'm going to leave you to tell people that if
that's something you choose to share with them. But she also,
you know, went to some friends in hers and expressed
her concerns about like why she didn't want to in there,
and they told her she was in the wrong, and
they were like, you know, this is her story. It's
(23:40):
not really up to you to determine what's in that.
And I had already decided to take it out, but
she came to me and was like, if you leave
it in there, I'll just deal with the consequences and
it's fine.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
So it was sort of like we both we met
in the middle.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
We both saw each other's perspective, and we're ready to
take a course of action to support that. It's just
that I had just made the decision that I'm gonna
leave this out because at the end of the day,
I do want to preserve and have a healthy relationship,
you know, with my mother. And while I don't think
that having that relationship means that I have to sacrifice
or compromise who I am for that.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I didn't actually consider this to be part of that.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Like, I didn't think this added any more to the
story than was already there, and I think it took
away from this story.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
So I was fine with like leaving that out. Hey, everybody,
you gotta take a quick break because I need to
pay bills. We still pay bills on season three.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
Back in the moment, Every Champion and Cary Champions to
be a champion, a champion and carry Champion and carry
chap beata Champion and carry Chapion and carry CHAMPI Entertainment
can Nigi.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
We're gonna.
Speaker 5 (24:52):
Every Champion and carry Champion is to be a champion,
a champion and Carrie Champion, Nigy a champion.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
And carry Champion. Hey, everybody, thank you for listening to
Naked with Carrie Champion.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
Jamal Hill is still here and she's giving out free
jewelry as I say, dropping gems.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
I hope you enjoy now when you do. Like, there
are so many differences.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
I've noticed a lot of people do the we'll write
a book and then they do a follow up, which
is probably what you'll do or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
A follow up would be a book too.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Is there anything that you learned about the writing process
about telling your story? Was it largely cathartic or was
it largely painful bringing up those memories?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
So?
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I mean, you know, I guess you could never say never,
and and we know that sometimes that chick can do
a lot of talking to you.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
I don't anticipate there will be a follow up to this, okay,
So this is it to cut you sliding down hill
Part two the right.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Right exactly like Oh remember I said it was gonna
be a part two. Wow, the publisher decided up, but no, I.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Wrote it. The reason I wrote it as honestly and
was this raw in.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
This book was because there is no part too, or
at least I went into it with that mentality.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
But I learned a lot about the writing process itself.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
One I think I took this for granted as a journalist,
because you're as a print journalist.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I'm used to working on deadline and so you know,
how we write with our hair on fire all the time.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It's sometimes it's not very discipline how we approach a
story and writing.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Because we do it, I feel and it can be
quite a process.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
This really drove home how much writing is a discipline,
and I realized how undisciplined of a writer that I
really am, because I write what I feel like it generally, like,
even if I know I have a story due on Friday,
I may wait till Friday at two am to write
the story.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
I'll crack it out. It'll be great, it'll get done.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
But I'm just used to kind of going to my
own clock to finish something, and you can't do a
book like that. And Walter Mosley gave me the best advice,
the very prolific author, Walter Mosley, and he told me,
you know something he practices is that no matter where
he is in the world, he writes for at least
two hours a day. He sets the schedule, writes during
(27:24):
that time. Whether it's great trash, doesn't matter, he's writing.
And that advice was really very life changing for me
for this book, because I wasn't on the writing schedule
before I had that conversation with Walter Mosley. And finally
I said, you know what, He's right, like, I gotta
stop haphazardly doing this because you know, to give a writer,
(27:46):
especially a career journalist a deadline that says like, oh,
you know, it's January. They talk about your first draft
is in due till like October. I'm like, you, guys,
don't know who you're talking to. Like now, that was
the wrong thing to tell on me, all right, because
God knows I'm away to September twenty ninth to start this.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I was like, what, no, Heart, I'll write my books
Optimber twenty ninth.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Give you a draft, smart exactly, exactly exactly my life. Hey,
give me that kind of draft of my life. Stir.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Because what I was doing, though, what I was doing, Carrie,
is that I would be writing for I would write
NonStop for like a week straight, turn out fifty pages,
and it wouldn't write again for like another month.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Like it was like, I can't do that, right, So
I put myself out of schedule. It worked masterfully. That
is how I got the manuscript finished. Is by doing that.
I had to buckle down and give myself hardcore times.
Usually in the morning. I wrote a lot to Gray's
Anatomy and this is us And that's what I did.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Okay, Auntie, I love this for you, all right, you'll
never Okay, I do want to say this. Then this
is just a full endorsement. You guys going get the book.
It is really truly it's inspirational and it's honest. It's naked.
And I saw the other day. This is when it
really hit home to me that you just never know
who's listening and watching. And I didn't know if you
(29:13):
knew this, but I saw that JR. Smith, retired basketball
player in the middle of an involvement process himself, tweeted
about how he listened it to your book as he
drove from Florida back to LA I believe, how'd that
make you feel great?
Speaker 1 (29:29):
I mean, you had asked me earlier about the response,
and I don't think I answered that question effectively enough.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
It's like the response has been tremendous.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And there's no greater delight that I get as an
author when people come up to me and say, hey,
I read your book and this is what I took
away from it. And it allows us to have like
kind of a quick but somewhat personal, you know, conversation,
and you never know where your book shows up either,
and JR.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Smith's a great testament to that.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Like there's been so much unexpected praise that I've received
from it. Because when you put out something that is
this personal, that you are really bearing your soul and
you're exposing yourself your family, like the things that you
have gone through, you never know how that's going to
be received.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
And typically because I've.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Been writing for such a long time, but I've been
writing about other people for such a long time. So
when people respond negatively to something I've written in the
Atlantic or when I was at ESPN dot com or
when I had a newspaper career, it didn't hit the
same because it was like they just disagreed. So what
it's a bunch of people that agree or I don't
really care because the writing. While I took pride in
what I wrote, it wasn't as personal because I'm writing
(30:39):
about something else.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
This is personal. So if somebody is like, I don't
like your book, or you know, I feel that sort
of sinse.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Of rejection, it's gonna hurt. My feeling is because you're
saying you don't like me, you don't like my life.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It's what you're saying. So it's gotta hit a little
bit different. You know with JR.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
That I know.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I shouldn't. It shouldn't be that way.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I should be at this big age, I should be
further along in my emotional development. But it's hard because
it is writing is very personal, and this kind of
writing about a memoir is extremely personal.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
So when I saw the JR.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Smith said that, I was like, oh my god, like that,
because one he is not somebody I would have expected
to pick up my book at all, So for him
to say that, I was like, Oh my goodness, like, JR.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Smith, Okay, that's a great, a really really great endorsement.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
And even some of my friends who I know, we all,
like you said, you have a lot of friends who
have written books, and it gets hard sometimes because the
rate in which we turn a knee suckers out.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It makes it hard to keep up with him.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
But I tried to very intentionally read all of my
friend's books, and it is hard to do and it
may take me a while to do it, but I
always circle back when I've read it and say, hey,
I really enjoyed your book and this is why. And
I try to be Smith because I know what that
means as an author. So if you read the book
and you don't like it, please don't tell me, because
(32:07):
clearly I'm dealing with very precarious self esteem here as.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
It relates to this book.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
You. I think a lot of people thought you were
going to write about Donald Trump and in a very intimate,
probably more detailed, much more substantial way of the book,
and you didn't make it purposefully a part of your book.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
In that way. I wonder when you talked about people the.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
Donald Trump incident and ESPN, did you lose any relationships?
You said your I talked about family members, But what
relationships did you lose and or gain because of what
you route about in your truth anyway? But by way
of background, can you tell everybody what happened? It's not
like they're under a rock. But when you left us ESPN,
(32:56):
it was due in large part because Donald Trump was
coming after you, and he made your life uncomfortable at
a network that was unwilling to stand up for what
was what I believe, what was right.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, ooh, you summed that up pretty nicely.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
But yeah, I mean in twenty seventeen, I created a
bit of an international situation when I criticized the President
on Twitter and called him a white supremacist and a bigot.
And said he was unfit for office, and yes I did.
It was shocking, shocking at the time, and that went
(33:30):
all the way up to the White House because the
Press secretary at the time, Sara Huckabee Sanders, now the
governor of Arkansas, a job I'm sure she'll be equally
terrible at she said that what I said was fireable.
Donald Donald Trump said I owed him an apology. He
also said I deserved to be fired, and that I
was dragging ESPN's ratings down.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
It was a whole big thing.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
And ESPN when the President came after me, they were
they were silent, they didn't say anything, and so I
was very disappointed in their reaction. This is an incident
that I detail in the book. Obviously in my time
at ESPN period, I mean, I was there for twelve years.
But what I didn't want, because I feel this way
(34:13):
in general, is like I don't want if Donald Trump
is in the first paragraph of my obituary, I will
have failed. And that is always how I saw our
unfortunate connection, is that I don't want to be a part.
I don't want him to be a part of my narrative.
I mean, it's a part of a story that's told,
but he's not a part of my personal narrative, and
(34:36):
I wanted to be sure, or I wanted to make
sure that ESPN did not absorb so much of my story.
It was twelve years of my life, and that's a
significant amount of time. It is the longest job that
I've ever had. But I didn't want the book to
be about ESPN. I wanted it to be just about
my time at ESPN as a part of a larger
(34:59):
piece within my story, because there was so much more
that I'd lived and experienced, and so that was very intentional.
That's why ESPN's at the back of the book. So
if you look at for all the ESPN stuff, it's
like in the last three or four chapters. If if
it's that important to you now. In terms of how
people at ESPN viewed the book, I don't know. I mean,
(35:22):
I mean, I don't I've heard from you know. The
person I heard from was John Skippers, the former president
of ESPN. He read the book and as he texted me,
he said, I was far kinder to him than he deserved,
and I appreciated them. Yeah, we worked together, so we're
(35:44):
you know, we well we were able to repair our
relationship because it was a really good one before that
all happened. And so he went through some personal struggles
as people know, and you know, eventually left ESPN himself.
He left before before I did, and so there's you
know that that fits had long ago mended. But in
(36:06):
terms of like the people that I wrote about from ESPN,
I have no idea how they felt about the book. Obviously,
whatever it was, it en pissed them off enough to
talk to call me and tell me, or you know,
maybe they just felt kind of like indifferent to it.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
So I have no idea. But I didn't write it.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
With the intention of getting any sort of reaction from
them anyway, So it just kind of I think they
probably put it in the camp of it kind of
is what it is that find it.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Interesting because I do believe that, well, I'm glad no
one said anything to you, and it sounds like to
me that it's that they didn't have enough guts to
even if they did. They couldn't challenge your truth because
one is your truth. But when you really call people out,
they you know, they can't take issue with what you
have said. If there are receipts I wonder if there
(36:57):
was a relationship that you could mend in addition to
John Skipper you were able to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Is there any other relationships that you had while working
there that you would like, that you would want to
mend or change?
Speaker 4 (37:09):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I hope that people, I mean people that are there
like should realize like I don't hold any animosity toward
ESPN at all, Like I think professionally, it was wonderful
for my career, and it really being there and being
on the mini platforms that they have really did teach
me how to be a better journalist. And so I
(37:32):
am grateful for the time that I had there. But
it was very much a It's a conditional relationship, just
like it is with any employer. Like you provide a service,
they pay you to do that service, and then when
that time comes, and often when that time comes, usually
it's not within your control. I was looking enough to
leave on my own terms, and so no, I don't
(37:55):
have any animosity toward there. And so the relationships that
I'm wanted to maintain with people who are at ESPN,
I maintained those because I considered them to be true friends.
The ones that I didn't I didn't because I didn't
feel like I felt like our time was done. You know,
there's some people there who I feel like that I
(38:17):
consider to be very disingenuous, and I don't I didn't
really sort of appreciate their professional capacities and some of
the decisions they made that impacted my career. Like I mean,
like we ain't gonna never see out of eye and
I don't, you know, we don't have to really fuck
(38:39):
with each other like that. So it's that that's fine,
but I don't you know, no, no, ILL will not
towards you know, like I'm working with them again with
this Kaepernick documentary, So obviously I don't have a issue
working with the network.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I have an issue with how certain people made some decisions.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
But you know, other than that, I mean, I consider
that to be part of sort of corporate politics protocol.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
So yeah, no attics, how they move. Yeah, yeah, that's
what it is. It's what it is.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
It happens that every place I've worked, the ESPN is
not unique in that in that situation.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Every champion and carry champion is to be a champion,
a champion and carry champion, and Cary Chap beat a
champion and carry chappion and carry chap.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Entertainment. Can naked weirder.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Kerry champion and carry champion is to be a champion,
a champion and carry champion champion and carry champion and
carried chapientertainment.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Get naked word Yeah on the outside looking in.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
And because I know this intimately, I think that you
are living a far more free life. And that means
you can say, you can do, You can come and
go as you please, You can tweet freely, You could
do all the things you call if if you chose to,
you can call Trump any name that you felt were appropriate.
And by the way, saying that in twenty seventeen was
so new. Now it's just like saying what you thought
(40:05):
you were saying, water is wet. So I'm curious about
life now for you. You wrote a book, you started
a production company. You are here eping to Colin Kaepernick
dot that will be on ESPN executive producer, I think
by Spike Lee. And you have been able to accomplish
(40:26):
so much. You had a network at Spotify, you have
all these different things. Is there something else that's still
out there that you want to do? How do you
see your career trajectory going now or you just take
it as it comes.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
So I do think I've gotten some clarity recently, and
I guess as just as a matter of slight correction.
Is like Spike Lee's directing, I'm executive producing.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Oh bye bye bad, Yes, my bad, Spike Lee's the director,
Jamel's EP.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Right, I would be god is So I thought you were, well,
I'm not directing. I mean, I I appreciate that though,
carry I was like, you know, I appreciate you putting.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Me in that seat.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Not yet, not yet, okay, which I mean, it's it's
it was a very timely slip because you know, I
have recently been presented with some opportunities to direct, and
I think one project in particular, I think I'm gonna
take them up on it.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
And so I think that is something that is definitely, Yeah,
that's definitely in my future, is directing. So breaking, I
would say, breaking news? Is it now? She about to
take over Gina's possition?
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Okay, No, I don't know about all that, you know,
and I just say anything about you know more on
the documentary side. Let me let me get my let
me get my feet wet, let me get my feet wet. Okay,
I'm not I'm not quite ready for a feature film
at this point.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
But king okay, Regina, King, Okay, let me stop.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
But and I do think that there's still a television
play for me out there as well. You know, I've
been meeting with some folks recently to talk about, you know,
sort of returning to to television, to sports in particular.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
So uh So I think I will.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
I think I will get back in the mix with
things there because there are parts of it that I
miss about being able to to talk about sports, and
not just about the heaviness of sports, but about the
likeness of sports, the things, you know, the the actual
games and the the people and the drama and the
and the things that we love about sports. There there
are still, you know, a part of me that that
(42:46):
wants to be in on that conversation. So uh I
think over the next two years that there would be
a focus on that, and I think my work behind
the camera is probably good to get a lot more intense.
So those are the things immediately I see on the horizon.
And something I just spoken to, I spoken to existence
(43:10):
like just a few days ago.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
I want to retire early.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
I really do, Like I didn't realize how much I
wanted to do this until recently about retire early. As
we know, we have the kind of jobs because it's
not physical labor, even though it can be taxing on
you physically, and says say, you know, the tiredness, the
emotional and mental drain. But I don't want to be
(43:35):
doing this for like another thirty years. There's some people
in our profession who like they gonna be at that
anchor desk. They gonna die at anchor desks. I'm like that,
that is not gonna be my testimony. That is not.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
So now. It's about like doing you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
It's about doing the things I really love to do
and am passionate about. I'm gonna go hard like the
next probably seven to ten years, and after that I
think I'm gonna be done.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
I think I will be done. So I got to
tend your window.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Dear Father, God, God, I'd like to say a prayer
right now, Dear heavily Father, if you were listening to
me and my sister Jamel, we would like an early retirement,
and Jesus the same we prayed.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Amen. I just thought I had manifest that with you
as well, because I too.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
I touch it agree, I touch and agree, such and
agree went to Gabba in his name, Father God. You
know what I'm saying, Bring us home, deacon his carry,
bring us home. Amen. Oh no, okay, I do love
that for you.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
I have.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
There is something about our generation specifically. I was just
talked to my best friend Kendre about this. She was like, oh, no,
I'm retiring early. And my mother was like, you can't
do that.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
I was like, no, no, no, we can. It's this.
We are like, we're done. We did it. We did that.
Speaker 5 (44:54):
Now.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
I want to be a lady of leisure. I have
no problem of being a lady of leisure. I do
it quite well.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
What would you do? I mean, I take a project
here and there, But what would you do in retirement? Well,
and not only that, we got to think about it
this way.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Most of us, you know, most of your friends, we've
been working since we were six.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
So it's like we don't laurel a lot of time,
child labor, child labor.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
What I'm saying, I've been working since I was thirteen
years old, and I don't say that like that makes
me in any way special.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
But that's a long ass time, Like I'm over.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
Twel my je it's wow, yeah, hi twelve by gee,
I've been working since I was twelve.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
I'm out of here. We did our fifty years almost,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
I was like, it's gotta be a cutoff because when
I retire, Yeah, when I retire, I want to retire
at an age where I could I could still be
be sprit out here in these streets, where I could
gallivant still.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
You know what I mean? Girl, So I cannot.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
I need to still be out here getting my high
girl Auntie on retired you, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
I don't want it. I don't want it. So what
do you want to do? What do you think you
want to do when you retire?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
I say that, but then I wonder people, I wonder
if people like us who are constantly stimulated or looking
to be stimulated outside of just normal discourse and books,
what do you do?
Speaker 2 (46:20):
So you know, I really would love to live on
a beach somewhere.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
And well, honestly, I guess I should put retire in
air quotes because I will always write and so like,
if I could retire and just write books. Oh my god,
sign me up for that life any day, live on
the beach, drink camrabal tea every morning.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And whiskey at night. Like that, that is that is
my life.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
Okay, you know me and my husband old sent up
there playing scrabble and uh watching Jeopardy every night.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yet that that is my life. Okay. I love that
for you. I love that for you. I wish that
for you. I want everybody to go out and get
my friend's book. It is really special.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And even when you're like at an airport, maybe do
it then, because sometimes she randomly just goes into an
airport and just start signing books. So go get a
signed copy, you know.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
What I mean. I love that you do that.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
I look for your book every single bookstore I go to,
especially being on the East Coast, there's so many bookstores.
I look every single I look. I take a picture
of all. It's just a blessing. Your friends write books,
is what I should call this podcast, because it's a
blessing to go in and see all my friends.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Right. But I'm like, that's my friend's book, that's my
friend's book, that's my first book. It's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It's an amazing thing, and it's an amazing accomplishment, and
I just want you not to lose sight of that,
because in fact, so many of our people do have books.
With that being said, I appreciate you joining me on
the Naked podcast. Is there anything people should be looking
forward to or supporting outside of getting your book?
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Oh? Well, well, I guess Speaking of the book, the
paperback is coming out this October, So if for some
reason you have a version of hercover books, the paperback
will be out in the fall. And of course for
all of those who prefer the audio version, as JR.
Smith clearly does, then I did do my own audiobook,
so you'd have to put up with my voice for
a couple of hours.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
But yeah, make sure that you get the book wherever
books are sold.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
Hey, everybody, I hope you all enjoyed the very first
episode of season three of Naked with Carrie Champion. It
is still my pleasure and my honor to give you
guys these very truthful stories. I hope you learned something
I really do. And I got to give a shout
out to my girl Jamal because she really got naked.
She didn't have on no clothes, no bra, no panny,
no nothing. She telling all the business and it's hard
(48:36):
to do that, but it does remind me when you
talk about tough things. It takes away shame, it takes
away pain, It takes away all those ingredients that make
you keep secrets because secrets are powerful.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
And I hope again you learned something today. Go out
and work on a relationship.
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Make it better, leave it alone, pick it up, put
it down, do something, but just be naked.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
I appreciate you. Off of listening, and I'll talk to
you next week.
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