It has been a few months since ESPN parted ways with former NFL star Ryan Clark as part of a broader round of layoffs. However, the circumstances surrounding his departure continue to draw attention. Since leaving the network, Clark has launched The Pivot Sports Show, expanding the platform he built alongside Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor. However, his abrupt exit from ESPN remains a subject of discussion.

During a recent appearance on Craig Melvin’s Glass Half Full podcast, Clark opened up about being informed of his departure while appearing live on television and why he believes ESPN’s decision to notify him before announcing its wider round of layoffs made his situation different from that of other employees.

“If they’re patient and they’re evil, it never comes to light,” said Clark. “If you’re smart enough to say, ‘We have these massive layoffs on Tuesday. If we’re doing this for the right reasons — if it’s about budget, if it’s about merging two companies, Ryan gets to find out that he’s laid off the day everybody else is.

“But the evil — right? — the ‘want’ and will to try to humiliate me, to try to garner favor for doing something you know is foul, backfired, because you give it to mean and evil and hateful people, right? Who you learn a snake gonna do snake shit, right? And you may think while you have it in this cage and you feeding it rats, it loves you, but it’ll eat you too, right?”

Clark’s comments stem from the unusual circumstances surrounding his departure from ESPN in July. The former NFL safety was informed that his position had been eliminated while he was appearing on NFL Live on July 20, a day before ESPN announced a broader round of layoffs.

The cuts were largely tied to the network’s integration of NFL Network and other NFL media assets following ESPN’s acquisition of those properties. What particularly frustrated Clark, however, was the manner and timing of his departure.

OutKick reported that ESPN was parting ways with him before the network’s broader announcement. At the same time, reports also indicated that ESPN accelerated the timing of his notification after receiving an inquiry about an impending report.

Ryan Clark, meanwhile, repeatedly disputed the idea that his departure was simply another layoff. In an episode of The Pivot shortly after the news broke, he argued that the network didn’t lay him off. In fact, he was fired.

“They’re using layoffs as a cover and a camouflage for what they already intended on doing,” he said. “But there was no cause for it. So because there was no cause for it you couldn’t just fire me, so you had to wait until the layoffs so you could camouflage it and veil it. If I was laid off like everybody else, it came out on Tuesday. Mine came out on Friday.”

Now, however, the NFL legend believes that the circumstances surrounding his exit were intended to embarrass him.

“Now, they see me on TV, they start getting antsy, and because you leaked it to them so they can write a great article about it, they can be so damn happy that Ryan Clark is gone, they’re about to out you,” Clark added in an interview with Melvin. “That’s how it happened. So now these things that were happening to me behind the scenes for an extended period of time, the world got to see it. And because the world got to see it, now I’m not so stupid. Now I’m not so whatever you want to make me. Like these things were really happening.”

Since leaving ESPN, Ryan Clark has increasingly focused on building The Pivot into a broader media operation. Just this month, he launched The Pivot Sports Show with Ryan Clark, a weekly show produced in partnership with NFL Films and featuring his podcast partners Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor.