Shocking message NBA on NBC host Maria Taylor received from ESPN colleague amid tumultuous exit

Maria Taylor's unceremonious exit at ESPN may have been worse than advertised.

As the NBC Sports host revealed on Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony's '7PM in Brooklyn' podcast, the final word she got on the way out the door wasn't one of encouragement.

'The last thing someone told me at my former employer was, "You'll never be seen on TV again,"' Taylor said.

Taylor did not specify who said that to her.

Since 2021, Taylor has been hosting a variety of sports programming on NBC, where she's recently been added to the network's new NBA coverage.

'Now she's everywhere,' Anthony, another NBA on NBC host, said in response to Taylor.

She would leave for NBC Sports when her contract expired in 2021, but not until after a leaked conversation emerged in which her ESPN colleague Rachel Nichols suggested Taylor's popularity at the network resulted from the network's diversity initiatives.

Nichols has since offered a public apology. 

Taylor addressed that aspect of her ESPN departure on 7PM Brooklyn as well.  

'There's a healing process you have to go through after something like that,' Taylor said on Anthony's podcast. 'To me, that was traumatic. But being on the other side of it now, I'm like, 'Oh, I get why you gotta walk through fire sometimes.' It just happens.

'And it feels so much better now,' she continued. 'I feel looser, I feel freer, I feel more confident in everything I do, which is all the things I need to be a part of a launch of the "NBA on NBC." That's the point.

'I feel like I'm standing in my purpose. This is what it's supposed to look like… I want to be on Sunday Night Football. They've never had a woman host that show. I need to be there.'