Former ESPN host Sage Steele says her questions for interviewing Joe Biden were 'scripted to the word' and she was told not to deviate or ask follow-ups

A former ESPN host who interviewed Joe Biden in 2021 is now saying the entire interview was 'scripted to the word' by network executives and that she was forbidden from asking follow-ups. 

Sage Steele, who formerly hosted ESPN's SportsCenter and worked for the network for 16 years, revealed her bosses at the time of the interview carefully crafted each of her questions. 

She claims she was handed a script by her ESPN boss and was threatened not to drift from what the executives had written for her to say. 

'I was told, ‘You will say every word that we write out, you will not deviate from the script,'' she told Fox News. 

'To the word. Every single question was scripted, gone over dozens of times by many editors and executives,' she continued. 'I was on script and was told not to deviate.'

Former ESPN host Sage Steele (Left) claimed in a recent Fox News report that her bosses carefully crafted a script for her to follow during her 2021 interview with President Joe Biden. She says she was told not to deviate at all from the script and read it 'to the word'

Steele later left ESPN after a legal battle in which she alleged the network infringed on her First Amendment protections 

'It was very much ‘This is what you will ask. This is how you will say it. No follow-ups.''

'This went up to the fourth floor, as we said, where all the bosses, the top executives, the decision makers are, the president of our company, the CEO, where they all worked,' she continued. 

Though Steele is unsure whether ESPN sent the scripted questions to the Biden administration in advance, she expressed that she was confident that's 'what happened.'

ESPN declined to comment.  

She also divulged how she was 'heartbroken' over the president's mental state after her interaction with him. 

'I think it's really heartbreaking that the people who love Joe Biden and say they truly care about him have allowed it to get to this point,' Steele said.

'So I'm not even looking at this from a political angle or my beliefs in anything. This is the human side of it.'

'And when someone is struggling, we allow them to continue to be in the spotlight and put them out there in the first place when they knew there were issues? Of course, they had to know.' 

'So it's a humanity thing with me where I don't care where anyone stands and what they vote for or who they believe in. Do you really care about that person? As a father, as a husband, as an everything.'

The new admissions about the infamous interview are not the first to be revealed by the former ESPN host. 

She previously bashed Biden as a 'terrible president' on TV host Bill Maher's Club Random podcast and recounted several uncomfortable off-camera interactions with Biden during the 2021 interview. 

'Well, what he started to do, of course he has someone next to him, and they keep a black, like, curtain over the lens of the camera, so you can't see him until the last second, but you can hear, and we're chitchatting… So I can hear him, and he goes, ‘What is this for?’… And he's, like, ‘Who am I talking to? Wait—what's her name?''

According to Steele, Biden mentioned how he used to play football, proudly claiming 'I have the best hands.' 

Steele added, 'What do you say to that?' 

She also said after that quip the president's voice trailed off and he told her 'Uh, never mind.' 

Since leaving ESPN Steele has created her own podcast called The Sage Steele Show, which is produced by Maher's Club Random Studios.

She settled a lawsuit with ESPN last fall after accusing her former employer of violating her free speech protections.