Cari Champion is living out her dream.
“I visualized myself working at CNN,” Champion said at Essence’s Black Women in Sports event in Inglewood, California. “I was a kid. I can tell you, I was standing there in front of the White House with a suit on, and I was going to report the news and give you the facts.”
Fast forward to 2022, and her show “Cari & Jemele: Speak.Easy.” with longtime co-host Jemele Hill is set to debut this spring on CNN+.
Dreaming is something Champion has also paid forward with her foundation Brown Girls Dream, a mentoring and support system for “high-potential young women of color” aged 18-27.
Champion’s path to CNN has gone a bit differently than she thought it would, however. The charismatic, photogenic and witty personality made a name for herself beyond that of being a pretty face on ESPN’s “First Take.” The passion Champion has shown in the clips of her Los Angeles Lakers’ fandom, is what connects her to the average sports viewer. But it is what you see beyond the sports shows that have made her relatable to the everyday Black woman. Her appeal is so strong, it landed her a show on the network she always dreamt of working for.
“If you see me in front of the White House, I might have this on and I’m going to be talking s—,” Champion, who sported a green Hervé Léger dress, joked. “The vision is different, right? The journey is different, but I had the dream.”
Champion held on to the dream through her early days of local news reporting, which came to a halt when the CBS Atlanta affiliate fired her for an alleged on-air slip up in November 2007. She maintains 15 years later she didn’t say what the station believed she said which ultimately led to the decision.
“I think everyone should get fired,” Champion told rolling out. “I think it changes who you are, I think it helps you identify who you are, it humbles you, that’s life. If you haven’t been fired, you haven’t been living. I think that also tells you when you get fired, you can come back from anything. I literally could work anywhere, and I have zero [fears], I’m out of them because I have been fired before, I brought myself up and I’m living my best life.”
She continued to dream throughout her years at ESPN when she wanted to show her abilities beyond being eye-candy at a desk between two middle-aged men screaming scripted sports debates at the top of their lungs every morning.
“You have to always learn to bet on yourself,” Champion said. “That’s the problem when we get into these rare spaces, we feel like we can’t get opportunities. They are there. Get fired, bounce back, be unapologetic. That’s my advice.”
