The Untold Truth Behind ESPN: Sage Steele Reveals What Really Happens, the Hidden Side of Divorce, and More

The blinding lights of ESPN’s studios were once Sage Steele’s second home. For nearly three decades, she played by the rules of network television, her life measured in countdowns to commercial breaks and the relentless rhythm of live TV. But behind the polished veneer, Sage’s world was unraveling—publicly and privately—in ways few could imagine.

It began quietly, as most storms do. First came the pandemic, then the controversy. Sage found herself suspended, then canceled, and ultimately locked in a legal battle with the very company she still worked for. Sixteen months of headlines and whispers followed her every move. Yet, in the midst of the chaos, another upheaval brewed—one that had nothing to do with ratings or contracts. Sage was getting divorced after nearly twenty years of marriage.

“It felt like failure,” she admitted, her voice steady but vulnerable. “I had to forgive myself. I thought God was going to be really mad at me.” Raised Catholic, she carried the weight of guilt and the fear of disappointing not just her faith, but her family and herself. She was a mother of three, a daughter of a veteran, and a woman who had spent her entire adult life with the same man—her college sweetheart.

The timing was merciless. While fighting for her career, she was also fighting for her sanity, navigating attorney calls during commercial breaks and returning to the set with a practiced smile. “Whatever’s going on in your personal life has to go in the back,” she said. “Everybody does that every single day when they go into work. Everybody’s got something.”

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But the cracks showed. There were moments—live, on air—when the pain threatened to bleed through. Once, at the end of a grueling SportsCenter broadcast, a respected colleague muttered something nasty to her in the final seconds. It was live. The audience saw a flicker of Sage’s composure falter. She called her mother in tears afterward, only to hear, “Sage, this isn’t about you. Sometimes people hurt because they’re hurting inside.”

As COVID hit, Sage found herself isolated in the Northeast, locked down in winter, far from the sun and surf she craved. She bought a condo in Florida, sight unseen, just for a glimpse of the ocean—her escape. Every other weekend, when her kids were with their father, she’d flee Connecticut for 48 hours in the sun, letting the sand and waves heal her soul. “It sounds so lame, but it healed my soul,” she confessed.

She learned to compartmentalize, to become what she jokingly called a “master compartmentalizer.” But she also realized the dangers of locking away her pain. “That can be a bad thing, if you just put stuff away in your personal life and even professionally, too.”

For five years, Sage was single for the first time since college. She dated awkwardly, her daughters teasing her about texting etiquette and “waiting thirty minutes before you reply.” She laughed at her own inexperience. “I married my first boyfriend. I never knew how to date.”

Yet, through it all, she never gave up on love. She prayed for clarity, for a sign—something obvious. On New Year’s Day 2024, after a disastrous date with a much younger man, she stood in the ocean and prayed, “Lord, don’t bring me anybody until you bring me somebody. Make it really clear.” Months of loneliness followed, then, out of nowhere, she met Dave—a fellow child of military parents, a veteran, and the son of a man who had served with her own father. Their mothers had volunteered together at a convent decades earlier. The connection was instant, almost eerie. Five months later, they were engaged.

But even as she rebuilt her personal life, Sage was forced to confront the reality of her professional world. ESPN, once her dream, had become a place of tension, politics, and shifting alliances. She watched as colleagues she’d admired changed under the weight of fame, some losing themselves, others revealing unexpected kindness. “You see people who had it all, and then just go nuts,” she said. “I think people forget where they come from. They lose perspective. The fame gets to your head.”

She recalled moments of cruelty—on-air barbs, off-camera snubs, the coldness of those who should have lifted each other up. But she also remembered her roots as an army kid, moving every two years, learning to make a home wherever she landed. When she finally sold her Connecticut house, the one where she’d raised her children, she walked through each room and prayed, thanking the memories before driving south with little more than two suitcases, a case of wine, and a single surviving houseplant.

Arriving in Florida, she sobbed—not from grief, but from relief. “I’m choosing what I want this to look like and I actually don’t know what that is. I know that it’s going to start here in a small condo compared to the big house and by the ocean that has helped me through so much.”

Sage’s journey was about more than leaving a job or a marriage. It was about learning to say yes—to new experiences, to vulnerability, to the possibility of joy after heartbreak. She described how, for years, she’d worried about pleasing everyone else, about fitting the mold of the perfect anchor, the perfect wife, the perfect mother. But at fifty, she realized, “I don’t care anymore. If they hate me, it’s their loss. It’s fine.”

She found peace in letting go—of expectations, of old pain, of the need to control every outcome. She embraced the chaos of blended families, the awkwardness of midlife dating, the freedom of working on her own terms. She learned to trust her faith, to pray openly, to demand what she truly wanted in a relationship.

The world saw Sage’s public battles—her suspension, her lawsuit, her departure from ESPN. But what they didn’t see was the quiet strength it took to rebuild, to forgive herself, to start again. She became an example for her children, showing them not just how to survive failure, but how to rise from it with grace and gratitude.

Now, as she looks back, Sage doesn’t regret the pain or the setbacks. “It had to happen this way,” she says. “Sometimes it’s not right and you have tough decisions to make even if they are difficult for others. But what’s on the other side can be beautiful.”

Her story is a testament to resilience, to the power of saying yes, and to the truth that sometimes, the greatest victories come not from the spotlight, but from the courage to step offstage and begin again.