Julie Stewart-Binks Out at Barstool After Eight Months, Co-Hosts Address News

Julie Stewart-Binks announced this morning that she is done at Barstool Sports, which she joined last September:

Stewart-Binks, who worked for FOX Sports and ESPN before Barstool, declined to comment for this story. Said Barstool founder Dave Portnoy via Twitter DM: “It was great working with her and I’m sure she’ll be successful in whatever she decides to do next.”

Opening up the morning show Barstool Breakfast on SiriusXM, her now-former co-hosts Willie Colon (the former NFL offensive lineman) and Francis Ellis addressed the story:

They began with Colon saying it was a sad day and asking Ellis if it was fair to say she was “released,” and Ellis quickly said yes but did not want to get into it. Both hosts said that Stewart-Binks was responsible for their joining the show. After that there was essentially a lengthy roundabout explanation about how Barstool is a “unique animal” where ultimately Stewart-Binks was not a great fit.

“This is the situation Barstool is in right now: People want to be a part of this juggernaut that has formed, but they don’t necessarily dive into what the core culture or the thread of Barstool and what it is,” Colon said, noting that he initially struggled with it and got into a spat with the blogger Adam Smith in his first week at the company.

“Now that I look back on the situation, it was a learning situation,” Colon continued. “Barstool is a situation where you look at [everything] from the bloggers to the content to Dave himself with the satire he provides to Big Cat to PFT Commenter — these guys have been doing this for a long time. They built this. So this is their arena. Their ring. So if you’re going to get into it, there’s no crying. There’s no regret. You either put your gloves on and your mouthpiece in and you get swinging, or you get out of the gym.”

Ellis concurred, saying that the first couple months of his tenure were a “nightmare,” and that there were days where he walked out of the office thinking he was done, humiliated, and miserable: “What it is is kind of an initiation: A lot of the guys here give you the tough love right in the beginning until you’ve proved yourself, and then they back off and then they incorporate you. It’s a real sink or swim kind of thing. The momma birds are pushing the baby birds out of the nest and saying you better learn how to fucking fly or you’re going to hit the ground and you’re gonna die.”

Ellis, who admitted in a later segment that he and Stewart-Binks “butted heads” at times on-air, nonetheless noted: “She’s an incredibly talented individual, a brilliant young woman, she has a very promising career ahead of her, I think, in sports broadcasting — wherever she winds up. I think her dream was always to be an Olympics correspondent at NBC or whatever it may be, and I don’t see any reason why that won’t come to fruition. She’s incredibly articulate. She’s very energetic. She brought her hard hat every day. She was almost always here — with one or two exceptions — and we admire her and we will miss her.”

Colon said that he would typically arrive at the office for their 7 am show at 5:45, and that she’d be there before him.

As far as the “one or two exceptions” go, many Barstool Redditors pointed out that there was a segment on the flagship Barstool Radio show on Friday in which a Barstool employee called into the show under a pseudonym and asked why Stewart-Binks had not been on-air that day. Portnoy responded that she had been out late with Rihanna, and from there there was a little bit of an awkward transition as Portnoy and the other two members of the show, Kevin Clancy and Liz Gonzales, deliberated about whether to discuss it further:

While the timing of these two things could point to a correlation, it would seem unlikely that someone would be terminated from Barstool for one night of partying. I asked Portnoy if this was the final nail in the coffin or it was just a matter of Stewart-Binks not being a great fit, and Portnoy responded, “Not at all. And I wouldn’t say final nail in coffin. It was mutual that she would pursue new opportunities.”