Allison Williams on Why She Quit ESPN Over the Vax Mandate

CLAY: Someone who knows a little bit about sports — also a fellow college football fan — she will appreciate, I believe, that I am in Jacksonville right now for the Florida-Georgia world’s largest outdoor cocktail party. She is Allison Williams, who recently quit ESPN over covid vaccine mandate. Allison, thanks for joining us. How you doing?

WILLIAMS: Hey, guys, I’m doing well. Thanks for having me.

CLAY: Do you have a Halloween costume planned for the weekend?

WILLIAMS: I’m so lame. I have a Halloween outfit. Does that make sense? I have some weird Halloween thing I’m going to wear.

BUCK: Is that like you put a little sticker on your chest that says “Halloween costume” or a little more ornate than that?

WILLIAMS: (laughing) It’s a little more than that but not much more. I am more focused on my son’s setup than anything.

CLAY: What is your son gonna be?

WILLIAMS: He’s gonna be a mailman because it’s like his favorite, the trash truck and the mailman, right? The costume is totally Amazon ordered, but we are doing the DIY part. We’re turning his wagon into a mail truck.

CLAY: That’s awesome.

WILLIAMS: I feel like costumes don’t count unless you make part of it. Like, my parents made all my costumes growing up from the crap they found in the garage and, like, a lot of duct tape and sometimes chicken wire and so forth. So I feel like you have to be a part of your costume; so that’s what we’ll do for him this year.

CLAY: All right, so Allison, I want to get into your decision-making. I know you joined The Daily Wire. You did a great job on Tucker, Megyn Kelly. You’ve talked to a lot of different people about your decision. But I wanted you to be able to talk with our audience about that decision as well. You had worked at ESPN for a long time.

ESPN comes out and says, “Hey, we have a covid vaccine mandate.” I believe you tried to get an exemption; they didn’t grant it. When did you make the decision, “Hey, if they’re going to require me to get the vaccine, I am not going to comply,” and did you expect for it to get to this point where you were forced to leave the company?

WILLIAMS: It was a really long process, Clay. So, I had a feeling mandates would be coming for months. I was encouraged when, in April, Disney sent out a company-wide email saying they believed it was a personal choice. I thought, “Okay, wow. I’ve got a chance.” I knew that I wasn’t comfortable receiving this vaccine for a number of reasons.

And when ESPN put out the statement that as of August 1st, to work any events, you had to be fully vaccinated, I knew that was gonna put me in a precarious situation and I started down the road of, “Okay, how do we navigate this?” It was kind of a roller coaster ride, honestly. When I initially reached out to the company, the people I spoke with understood and they seemed like they could…

They thought, like, for sure we could work something out, right? Like, I mean, yes, there’s this mandate that August 1st you have to be vaccinated but why couldn’t you test and mask and kind of do what we did last year, which obviously worked well. Nobody had any issues, and so he explored some options with people above him in H.R., all of this stuff, and it was a hard “no.”

Like, there was no budging, there was no wiggle room, there were no conversations. It was a hard “no” for any event. So that ended my college football season. But I really, really truly thought I could still work for the company. I’d hosted shows in the past. I hosted them in studio. I hosted them virtually from here in California where I live.

And then I also thought there could be a role for me to kind of help mentor some of the new sideline reporters they brought on. I just felt like there’s of a way for me to contribute even if it’s from my house, right? I think the people that are on College Football Live all do it from their home or remote studios. So to me, that just seemed like there’s got to be a way I can maintain my employment and provide value to the company safely without being vaccinated.

And ultimately, they said there wasn’t. (laughing) That’s like kind of the long story — the short story. It was a long process. This went on for think it was like three months it took. And the tough part, too, was I was also my contract was up, so we were negotiating that, and then I was considering getting vaccinated, and I was like, “All right, extend last year’s deal,” which was for very little money, “just to stay employed and do what I can, and the next year, you know, we’ll kind of reevaluate, see where things are at, whatever,” and it just wasn’t an option. And I really feel like… If I’m being honest, I just feel like they didn’t want to deal with me.

BUCK: Hey, Allison, it’s Buck. Just for everybody joining us, we’re talking to former ESPN reporter Allison Williams, who has recently joined up with the great folks over at The Daily Wire for a new show. Allison refused to get the vaccine under mandate from ESPN. Allison, Clay and I spent a lot of time speaking through or talking about the nuances of what’s true, what’s not about risks, about the data, about everything related to covid.

So my understanding is it was a fertility-concerns issue with the vaccine. Can you just tell us what are the concerns? What made you think about this? Did you speak to doctors you know about it? Essentially, explain to us what would be considered your reasons for the “hesitancy” to get the vaccine. I think “hesitancy” is the word people tend to use.

WILLIAMS: First of all, isn’t it insane that I have to explain that?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Yes.

WILLIAMS: This is a medical decision I’ve made. That should be private. And no offense to you, Buck, I totally respect the question. I understand where you’re coming from. But I just think we’ve gotten to this place where we expect to know everything about everyone. It’s ridiculous. Like, “I feel bad asking you this.” I’m like, “Thank you, because this is insane that I have to go and publicly explain what’s going on with my family planning, how my husband and I are trying to get pregnant.”

This is private crap that people should be able to keep private. But rants aside, look, I went to all the websites they tell you to go to. K? This is a new vaccine. Just do the math. Like, how can they determine that it’s safe and doesn’t affect affect fertility? That takes years. This vaccine rolled out in December. It hasn’t even been out a year. So while women are getting it when they’re pregnant and having successful pregnancies, that’s tremendous. But there’s also issues that are taking place who people in the mainstream media I guess want to ignore because it could, quote-unquote, “add to vaccine hesitancy.”

CLAY: Allison, could I just ask you, did you see the FDA panel member that was part of the vaccine approval for kids say, “We gotta give it to the kids to find out how safe it is.”

WILLIAMS: We don’t know if it’s safe! Exactly. So when they came out and said that it’s safe for pregnant women that set off alarms in my mind. You’re not supposed to have a freaking turkey sandwich when you’re pregnant, okay? So how do you know that this brand-new mRNA technology is safe? So I went to their website to understand why they’re saying it’s safe and the first thing they say is it’s, quote, “based on what they know about the mRNA technology.”

What? Okay, that makes no sense, and then two, it was “based on studies of infertility in animals.” Like, there were there were no women involved in the clinical studies that were pregnant. There was no effort to study pregnancy or fertility-related issues. So that just, like, made me a little concerned and set off some red flags. And it’s just not something I’m comfortable with.

And the CDC’s conclusion is based on what we know about the risks of covid-19 during pregnancy — because you are at a higher risk, it makes sense right? You gain weight like all these crazy things happen approximate your blood pressure. I totally understand that. But their conclusion was the benefits outweigh risk. That should be an individual’s decision!

CLAY: It’s so well said, Allison, because we’ve been fortunate enough to have three babies, and by “we,” I mean my wife did because I can’t be a “birthing person” despite what some people might claim out there.

WILLIAMS: (laughing)

CLAY: But you know what’s interesting about it is, I hadn’t really even thought about it. When you say like, “Hey, you’re not supposed to eat turkey sandwiches,” sliced turkey. “You’re not supposed to eat sushi,” like all these things, “you can’t have a glass of wine,” but they’re saying, “Hey, it’s perfectly fine to get shot up with drugs — a brand-new vaccine — while you are in the process of trying to have a baby which is incredibly difficult for so many people.”

WILLIAMS: Yeah, and they acknowledge it’s still being gathered! The acknowledge the data is still being gathered.

CHILD: (noise)

WILLIAMS: They literally ask you to submit your information, you know, if you get the injection and then go on to get —

CLAY: Is that “the mailman” in the background there?

WILLIAMS: Sorry, that is the mailman. He’s, like, trying to drop off —

BUCK: He always delivers.

CLAY: Yeah, he’s delivering for our audience right now.

WILLIAMS: (laughing)

CLAY: Allison, I’m curious. What’s the reaction inside among ESPN people that you are friendly with to your decision, and what has the external reaction been like for you? Because as you said there’s very few examples where people give this much medical detail about their choices when it comes to vaccine.

Now, by the way, I also want to point out, even though people are like, “Oh, Allison Williams or Clay Travis,” ’cause I made the same decision as you, except I’m obviously not trying to have a baby. But they’re like, “Oh, you’re anti-vax.” No. My kids gut measles, mumps, rubella vaccines. Like, I’m anti-mandatory covid vaccines in order to work, and I think that’s pretty much your perspective as well.

WILLIAMS: Yeah! It should be a choice. Like, this I feel like — and I guess that’s why I’ve kind of gone down this road. I initially… (laughing) I didn’t want to do this, guys. I kind of just wanted to lay low. It went may more public than I ever anticipated. I thought, “I’m gonna make any post on my Instagram just to get some things off my chest and explain myself,” because I knew, like, this information was gonna come out eventually.

And then everybody… I don’t know. It just kind of blowing up and I’m like (sigh), “God. Do I really want to take this on?” And honestly, I didn’t, but I felt like it matters that much. And I’m like, “Look, I’m gonna get pegged a lot of things. There’s gonna be assumptions about how I believe on other issues and how I voted in the past and all these things,” and ultimately I decided I didn’t care, that nothing matters more than individual freedom and medical freedom and bodily autonomy.

And I just can’t shake this feeling that people don’t realize what they’re giving up! Like, I’m gonna fight for my freedoms while I still have them before it’s too late. But I felt like to stay silent was to comply. And so that’s when I said I went on with Tucker and chatting with you today, because you can get this vaccine and still think that people should be able to choose to get the vaccine like you did! (laughing)

BUCK: Well, this is what we did. This is what we say here on the show. We were just talking before, Allison, before you joined us, about how Clay’s parents have already gotten the booster — the booster, never mind the vaccine. My parents are scheduled to get their boosters in the next couple of weeks. And yet I’ll have people yell at me and say I’m anti-vax, right?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

BUCK: I mean, this is the reality of the world we’re in now. It’s madness. But your feelings about freedom and the need to defend it we really do appreciate that and clearly you have the courage of your convictions on this one and folks should certainly go check out your new show which is “sports without the woke,” I hear, over at The Daily Wire.

WILLIAMS: Their words, not mine. (laughs)

BUCK: Allison, any more about what you’re doing?

WILLIAMS: I’m excited, you guys. Look, again, it was like, “Do I go down this road? Do I wait for this to blow over?” And The Daily Wire reached out, and they said, “Look, we think we can do something really cool here.” And they were so aligned with what I wanted to pursue and how I wanted to pursue it with an unbiased angle and really dive into how these mandates are affecting sports. So we’re gonna do a special.

It’s kind of still the details are being ironed out. I just wrote an opinion piece for them that’s up right now kind of explaining why I made the decision that I have. But I’m excited to work with a company that still sees (chuckles) I can be a valuable employee despite not being vaccinated. And I hope we can get into some really serious issues that are affecting not just sports but our country as a whole.

CLAY: Allison, how excited are you? You’ve been in sports for a long time and certainly I’ve been in sports for a long time, and there are a lot of handcuffs put on what you can and cannot say. Do you feel incredibly liberated to just be able to say — finally, I would imagine — exactly what you think about a variety of issues, covid vaccine and everything else, that wasn’t allowed in the world of sports?

WILLIAMS: A little bit, yeah. I kept feeling like I was kind of muzzled the past 18 months, two years, whatever it’s been. There were so many things I wanted to tweet out and share and say but I just bit my tongue because I knew of the backlash, and I knew kind of how it would portray the company and stuff. Not that there was… I don’t want to, like, misconstrue this.

There was never any directive sent down or, like, any instruction to not speak on certain things, right? But you just kind of knew. (chuckles) You knew it wasn’t in line with the company policy or thought, if you will, to question a lot of what’s been going on. So I did feel a bit muzzled. I feel a bit liberated. I feel… I don’t know. I’m still trying to navigate this, honestly, guys. Like, it’s a weird space for me. I like to tell other people’s stories. I don’t like to be the story. But I do feel a little bit liberated. I feel a little less (crosstalk) (laughing).

BUCK: Well, Allison, you’re not alone. The Clay and Buck show has your back, and there are millions of people listening across the country who do as well. Good luck to you over The Daily Wire. Give those folks our best. Clay and I are fans of theirs and really appreciate what they do, and thanks for joining us today.

WILLIAMS: You got it, guys. Thanks for having me. Have a happy Halloween.