Maria Taylor is breaking her silence about leaving ESPN.

Speaking to Carmelo Anthony on his “7PM in Brooklyn” podcast, Taylor shared the emotional turmoil she experienced and how she thought she may never cover basketball again.

“When I left, I really thought I was leaving basketball on the table. And that’s the sport I love,” Taylor said.

When she signed with NBC, the emotions overwhelmed her while on assignment at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. 

“I cried every day in Tokyo,” she said. “There was a healing process that you have to go through after something like that. To me, that was traumatic. But being on the other side of it now, I’m like, ‘I get why you have to walk through fire sometimes.’ It just happens. And it feels so much better now. I feel looser, I feel freer, I feel more confident in everything I do.”

Amazingly, Taylor's timing couldn’t have been better as NBC Sports purchased broadcast rights from the NBA which allowed her to cover the league again. Currently, Taylor is the lead NBA studio host.

“I just really thought I was never going to cover it again unless it was Team USA. Then to flash forward now and we’re five years into this and I have an opportunity to be back in the league, that’s what I was working toward,” Taylor said. “And I had reached it and I lost it. So I think sometimes, things can be removed out of your life for a reason, because this is what was on the other side of it, and this is where I needed to be. So for me personally, it’s like the biggest full-circle moment I could ever ask for.”

In July  2021, Taylor left after contract negotiations failed and following public remarks by colleague Rachel Nichols that Taylor was only promoted to host the NBA finals because she is Black. The departure occurred weeks after a recording of Nichols' private conversation was leaked, causing tension and leading to Taylor's decision to leave rather than sign a new contract. Nichols apologized on-air during an episode of ESPN’s “The Jump”  and both hosts left the network in 2021.