Stephen A. Smith says he misses Molly Qerim, had nothing to do with her ‘First Take’ exit

Eight months after Molly Qerim walked out the door at ESPN, Stephen A. Smith is still being asked about it. That’s partly because his answers keep leaving room for more questions. The latest came on Cam Newton’s Funky Friday, where Smith got more personal about it than he has before.

Qerim spent a decade as the host of First Take, as the one constant through the Skip Bayless era, the Max Kellerman era, and everything in between. She was the traffic cop, the tone-setter, the person keeping Smith and whoever was across from him from going completely off the rails on any given morning.

The 2015 NFL MVP wanted to know how someone that central to the show ends up gone, and whether the guy sitting next to her for all of it had anything to do with it.

“I was not behind that. I had nothing to do with that. I love Molly,” Smith said. “Molly is a really good friend. She’s always been good to me, and she was on the show with me for 10 years and, you know, we were number one. And she had a lot to do with that, because a lot of people got a lot of love for her.”

The full picture of how Qerim ended up leaving ESPN has come into focus slowly, through several of these conversations. When she walked out the door last September — hosting First Take on a Monday and gone by Tuesday morning — Smith opened that show alone with a farewell message that ESPN clearly hadn’t had much time to prepare him for. The same day, on his SiriusXM show, he launched into a lengthy rant about leverage and contract negotiations that he kept insisting wasn’t about Qerim, even as the on-screen chyron still read “Molly Qerim announces departure from ESPN, First Take.” He said it came as a shock. He said the details were none of anybody’s business. He said she made a decision she felt was in her best interest, and that story was hers to tell.

By February, appearing on Michael Irvin’s White House on Netflix, he filled in more, offering that ESPN’s bosses had already decided to move on from Qerim before she resigned, and that being the show’s executive producer didn’t mean he had any real say in it. ESPN content president Burke Magnus had effectively confirmed as much when he told The Athletic that the network had been planning to make a change by the end of the year, regardless. Her contract was set to expire, and Shae Cornette — who had been the show’s primary fill-in host for years — officially took the job in mid-October after about a month of auditions.

On Funky Friday, Smith said he had sensed something in Qerim even before it all came to a head.

“There were times that, you know, I wondered whether she wanted to be there or not, cause she had a lot going on,” Smith said. “And it just got to a point where, you know, she was just at odds in terms of what she wanted to do compared to what they wanted to do… I’m not at liberty to get into the details. I can’t do that. I’m not gonna do that, but I will tell you that they have a right to make those decisions.”

He was careful, as he always is, to give Cornette her due. He called her outstanding, said she knows her sports backward and forwards, and has been consistent about that message since October. But he was equally careful to separate that from the conversation he was actually having, which wasn’t about the show’s present. It was about his friendship with the person who used to be there.

“I’m not just speaking about Molly’s ability as a host. I’m not just speaking about the love and the affinity that the community had for her. She and I are friends,” Smith said. “I’ve known Molly now for over 11 years.”

The friendship, Smith said, only deepened in Qerim’s final years at ESPN. She had been dealing with a lot — she has been vocal publicly about her battles with endometriosis, a condition that had affected her throughout her time on the show — and Smith said she leaned on him during that stretch in ways she hadn’t before.

“She’s confided in me a lot, trusted me with a lot of things, and our friendship only grew, and I miss her. I miss her a lot,” Smith said.

Qerim has kept busy since leaving. Her first public appearance after the ESPN exit came at UConn, where she moderated a Q&A with men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley. By January, she had secured her first major television role since leaving the Worldwide Leader, hosting Zuffa Boxing events on Paramount+.

“She knows if she ever needs me for anything, I will be there because we’re friends and I got a lot of love for her,” Smith said, “and I’m gonna always have a lot of love for her, and I miss her.”