Joy Taylor has given an update on her mental well-being since being caught up in an alleged sex scandal that made headlines earlier this year.
Back in January, former Fox Sports staffer Noushin Faraji accused Skip Bayless, along with Taylor and other notable people at the network, of creating a toxic working environment.
In addition to alleging that Bayless offered her $1.5 million to have sex with him, Faraji accused Taylor of being given her role as the moderator on Undisputed because of her alleged sexual relationship with Fox Sports executive Charlie Dixon, even though she was married at the time.
Causing a media storm, Taylor's name and her alleged affair was sprawled all over news sites, and she was even temporarily "sidelined" from her role as co-host of FS1 show Speak, according to Front Office Sports. The show has since been canceled — along with two other shows on the network (per The Athletic).
Appearing as a guest on the latest episode of Cam Newton's Funky Friday podcast, Taylor, who is the younger sister of NFL Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, talked about her departure from FS1, while also speaking on how she's doing personally now that the drama has died down slightly.
“I'm much better now than I was obviously at the beginning of the year," she told Newton around the 32-minute mark in the video below. "It's been a unique experience for me in my life. I've been through a lot of shit in my life, but this one was different."
While admitting that there were "definitely" some "very, very dark" moments for her during the controversy, she said she was able to get through it by "leaning on the people in my life that I know have my back, that I know trust and love me, that I can trust."
She also added that therapy, medication and working out "a lot" really helped with "drowning out the noise."
“So, it’s been a very, very tough year for me personally," Taylor continued, before explaining there was a silver lining of sorts. "It's also been a learning year, a shedding year, a year where I learned to protect myself, protect myself emotionally, to kind of pay attention to different energies when they enter my space."
Taylor also said that she's spent some of the past couple of months reflecting on what it is she really wants for herself and her career moving forward, while celebrating what she's managed to achieve to this point.
"I've really accomplished what I set out to do when I started in this business," she said. "My goal was to do a daily opinion show where my voice mattered as much as the men at the table. And I was able to do that at the highest level, at the network level."
Closing out the topic, Taylor concluded: "I've been through a lot in my life. I've had a lot of traumas. A lot of people [have done] much worse things to me. And I think that this was a moment that really quieted my spirit, and it definitely broke me in a lot of ways.
"But I'll be a different person. I’ll never be the same. I know that for sure. How I'll be different, I don't know yet. It's too soon. It's too raw. And there’s still too much happening to know that. But I hope that I hold on to the best parts of myself because it's really hard to do."