ESPN's Jemele Hill denies Chris Berman left 'racially disparaging' voicemail

Jemele Hill wrote that longtime ESPN personality Chris Berman “never left any racially disparaging remarks on my voicemail” in a Twitter message Monday night, disputing a claim made in a federal lawsuit by a former network employee.

“A few years ago, I had a personal conflict with Chris Berman, but the way this conflict has been characterized is dangerously inaccurate,” Hill said. “Chris never left any racially disparaging remarks on my voicemail and our conflict was handled swiftly and with the utmost professionalism.”

The alleged incident from 2016 was part of a 93-page sexual harassment lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut on Sunday by Adrienne Lawrence, who worked at ESPN as part of a two-year fellowship program. While Lawrence previously had made claims regarding others at ESPN, the inclusion of Berman was a new wrinkle to her allegations that ESPN is a toxic work environment for women. 

Hill said she felt her concerns “were taken seriously by ESPN and addressed in a way that made me feel like a valued employee.”

 An ESPN statement provided to USA TODAY Sports also disputed the allegations made in the lawsuit. 

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“We conducted a thorough investigation of the claims Adrienne Lawrence surfaced to ESPN and they are entirely without merit,” ESPN said in its statement. “Ms. Lawrence was hired into a two-year talent development program and was told that her contract would not be renewed at the conclusion of the training program.  At that same time, ESPN also told 100 other talent with substantially more experience, that their contracts would not be renewed.  The company will vigorously defend its position and we are confident we will prevail in court.”

Hill also took Lawrence to task for making her part of the lawsuit. 

“Frankly, I'm more disappointed that someone I considered to be a friend at one point would misrepresent and relay a private conversation without my knowledge – in which I simply attempted to be a sounding board -- for personal gain.”

Smith and ESPN weren't the only ones to question allegations made in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit also claims ESPN "regularly uses bots and fake social media accounts to promote its shows, reports and on-air talent" and listed three accounts that allegedly sent "a barrage ... of threats and attacks on social media."

USA TODAY Sports reached out to each account. Two responses via direct messages confirmed they were humans not connected to ESPN, and not bot accounts run by automated software. USA TODAY Sports also spoke with the Twitter user Rob G. by phone. 

"We stand by all of the allegations in the complaint," Brian Cohen, one of Lawrence's attorneys, said in an email to USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday. 

Berman, who has been at the network since a few weeks after it launched in 1979, was alleged to have left the voicemail for Hill in 2016 when she was co-hosting His & Hers. Hill and her His & Hers co-host, Michael Smith, took over the 6 p.m. ET weekday SportsCenter last year.

Hill was admonished by ESPN for a tweet about President Trump in September, in which she called him a "white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists." She ran afoul of ESPN's social media policy again in October and was suspended for two weeks. 

Hill stepped down from her SportsCenter hosting duties to work for The Undefeated, ESPN’s website dedicated to sports, race and culture. 

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