Doug Adler is taking his fight against ESPN to the courts and now through the media.

Adler opened up on the “Today” show in an interview with Matt Lauer that aired Friday about the dangerous levels of stress and humiliation he experienced as a result of ESPN pulling the plug on him for remarks that some considered racist. The former tennis player and veteran commentator faced a surge of backlash for describing Venus Williams’ strategy at the net as the “guerrilla effect,” which many listeners heard as “gorilla” and a slight at Williams’ race.

Adler apologized for the comment, while continuing to insist he was innocent, but ESPN let him go anyway and Adler responded by filing a lawsuit against the network in February for wrongful termination.

“They didn’t have good cause and I didn’t do anything wrong,” Adler said during the sit-down interview. “They killed me, they made me unemployable. They ended my career, they killed my reputation, my good name. What else was I supposed to do?”

ESPN disputed the portrayal of the incident on the “Today” show in a statement released later Friday.

“The piece misrepresented the facts and the world’s reaction,” the network said in a statement. “We removed him from the Australian Open for making an inappropriate comment that was viewed negatively by everyone but Adler.”

Adler, whom ESPN hired in 2008, told Lauer he’d never considered the word “guerrilla” being interpreted in a racial context and that hearing his name and “racism” in the same sentence makes him “absolutely sick.”

Adler was doing play-by-play commentary on ESPN for Williams’ Jan. 18 match against Stefanie Voegele, saying Williams was playing more aggressively after Voegele missed serves.

When Voegele faulted on a serve, Adler described Williams as moving in and charging with a “gorilla effect” or “guerrilla effect.” Because the words gorilla and guerrilla are pronounced similarly, it’s impossible to say for certain which word Adler spoke.

Offended viewers called for Adler to be fired for comparing Williams, who is African-American, with a gorilla. At the time Adler said he was speaking about Williams’ tactics and strategy and “simply and inadvertently chose the wrong word to describe her play.”

Adler said he believes ESPN would not have treated its higher-profile employees with the same abruptness.

“It would not have happened to John McEnroe, it would not have happened to Martina Navratilova,” he said. “They would’ve put the time, the energy and the resources into defending those people because they did nothing wrong.”

Adler claims the public dispute led to him spending 20 hours a day with “no food, no sleep, obsessed and passionate to get my name back and my reputation.” He suffered a heart attack two weeks after submitting the lawsuit.

Adler has handed over his future and emotional well-being to the court.

“I hope so, I’m trying to live without it now,” Adler said of his anger. “I agree there is a great degree of anger there, and I’m not happy about the anger. And until I think that I’m proven fairly, that I didn’t do anything wrong, I think it’s gonna sit with me.”

With AP