Joy Taylor questions her future in media in first comments since Fox Sports exit

For the first time since her time at Fox Sports came to an end last week, Joy Taylor is breaking her silence.

And while many — us included — have wondered what’s next for the former host of Speak, she’s not even sure that her future will be one in the public eye.

Joining The Ringer’s Higher Learning, Taylor addressed her recent exit from Fox Sports following a near-decade run at the company. But although she expressed gratitude for the opportunity to live out her dream as a sports panelist whose opinions were considered equal to her male colleagues, she also admitted that the last seven months have left her especially jaded.

“… Overall, like the saying ‘it doesn’t feel like work is when you’re doing something that you actually enjoy. I think what happened to me this year took that away from me,” Taylor said. “I don’t know if I’ll get that back. I might — and maybe like when the callous forms over the wound and you get away from things you it doesn’t feel, like the tremors go away, so we’re not there yet — but right now, it doesn’t feel that way. It doesn’t feel exciting.

“Like the big dreams seem like ‘I’m going to do it but I’m not as excited about it.’ And that’s kind of s*itty ’cause this has been a lot of work and a lot of passion. But it’s been something that I think has come naturally to me because I enjoy it… but the building the work of it all, it doesn’t feel the same. Like the dream now is to just disappear.”

Co-hosts Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay both expressed hope that Taylor doesn’t make good on that dream, noting that her exit from Fox Sports is still extremely fresh. The Pittsburgh native, however, stated that she had already begun to contemplate the future of her career before last week’s cancellations and had already determined that she would be making a change at some point.

“I don’t want to be 70 with a mic,” she said. “I want to build things for other people to have spaces… not being front-facing allows you the space to still create, but not have this responsibility. And this comes with a lot responsibility, especially if you’re somebody like me. And not to toot my horn, but in a lot ways, I am the only me. And that’s a lonely experience… there’s not a lot comps, if any, to what I do in the space that I’m in.”

While Taylor may have taken a reputational hit as the result of her inclusion in the Fox Sports workplace misconduct that was first filed in January, Lathan pointed out that she’s never been more famous than she is now. And whether she’s been doing it all along and people are just now paying attention or it’s come as the result of a purposeful shift, it hasn’t been hard to notice the amount of attention she has recently received for discussing content that is often sexual in nature.

Reading between the lines, it seems clear that the wound from the Fox Sports exit is still fresh — something she openly admitted to throughout the interview. Still, it was certainly notable to hear Joy Taylor address her future in the industry and openly admit that she’s still not sold she wants one.