Former ESPN host and columnist Jemele Hill is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer covering "the intersection of sports, race, politics, gender, and culture," the magazine's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, announced Monday morning.

Hill, 42, left ESPN in August after nearly 12 years with the company, most recently as a columnist for The Undefeated, a web site that focuses on racial and cultural issues related to sports. She has become one of the most well-known figures in sports media in recent years due to her willingness to wade into politics, drawing praise from some and criticism from others — the president of the United States among them.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hill said she was ready to "spread my wings in different ways" and that her relationship with ESPN had "run its course."

"There’s a wider playground that I can dabble in, and places where the discomfort is okay," she told the magazine. "I wasn’t going to be able to be happy with myself if I didn’t adhere to this calling that’s beckoning me right now."

Hill was a columnist and podcast host at ESPN before being promoted to co-host the 6 p.m. edition of "SportsCenter" alongside Michael Smith. Her tweets about President Donald Trump, including one that called him a "white supremacist," prompted a backlash late last year.

Critics cited Hill's tweets as evidence that ESPN had become too political in its coverage of sports, which she described to The Hollywood Reporter as a "dumb narrative."

"Mike and I specifically were called political, way before any of the Trump stuff ever happened," she told the magazine, while referencing her former "SportsCenter" co-host. "And I always thought that was a very interesting label because frankly, I think that most of the time it was said because we were the two black people."

Hill is also narrating LeBron James' upcoming documentary series "Shut Up and Dribble," which will debut on Showtime in November.

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.