Keith Olbermann is unhinged, isolated: former colleagues

Broadcaster Keith Olbermann has become ever more embittered and isolated as his work and influence have dried up, with former colleagues worried he needs “serious help,” The Post has learned.

Olbermann, 66, railed against members of the Trump administration on social media this week as well as threatening conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings with “you’re next motherf—er,” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Former MSNBC and ESPN personality Olbermann, who now hosts an independent podcast, apologized to Jennings after he reposted his tweet and tagged the FBI Monday.

“We thought for many years that he was losing it, and I say this honestly and out of concern for another human being,” said Sage Steele, a former ESPN anchor who previously worked with Olbermann at the network. She now hosts the Sage Steele Show on YouTube.

“I think anyone who posts such hate as he often does and the language he uses, there’s something that’s not right,” she told The Post Tuesday.

“He needs some serious help,” added Steele. “It’s actually heartbreaking to see, especially for those of us who grew up watching him.”

Last year, Olbermann referred to Steele as “the dumbest person I’ve ever worked with in sports or news” in an X post made in response to comments she had made about interviewing President Biden for ESPN in 2021.

Former champion swimmer Riley Gaines, a favorite target of Olbermann’s due to her advocacy for fairness in women’s sports, called him “a senile old man” in an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan. Olbermann has referred to Gaines, a 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer for the University of Kentucky, as a “nasty, stupid transphobe” for her activism.

Those who have worked closely with him say the unhinged rants have been going on for years. “He’s been fired from just about every job he’s had,” said Jean Sage, an agent who repped Olbermann for 30 years.

“He’s immensely talented but people either hated him or loved him and he always wanted to burn down the house every time.”

Olbermann lives in New York City and also owns his childhood home in Westchester alongside with his sister Jenna, according to public records.

Former colleagues told The Post he rarely leaves his house unless he can find someone to take care of his multiple dogs.

Olbermann is obsessed with helping find homes for abandoned dogs, and has said that he spends upwards of $1,000 a week to help his canine friends. He works with Animal Control Services in New York City and has posted about finding homes for rescue dogs on X.

“He refused to come to ESPN’s studios in Bristol, Connecticut to record unless someone could take care of his dogs,” said Steele, who told The Post she often traveled to his home to broadcast for this reason — even though she was the lead anchor on her SportsCenter show for the network.

“I bumped into Olbermann a few times back in the day before the 1st time he was fired by ESPN,” claimed a social media user. Olbermann was fired from ESPN in 1997 but brought back, then in 2015 the network refused to renew his contract.

In the interim, he worked at MSNBC but left in 2011 following clashes with management. He had been suspended from the network a year earlier for donating to Democratic candidates, a violation of the network’s ethics policy.

“I was a frequent diner at the White Birch Inn, which was right next to ESPN before they bought all the surrounding land for their expansion, and tore it down.

“He would treat the staff horribly, one time bringing a young woman to tears in front of all the other diners, raising his voice loudly so everyone could hear him berate the girl, at one point even calling her ‘stupid’ because his food wasn’t ready the very second he entered the building. He’s always been a jerk,” continued the user’s comment.

Steele said Olbermann often bragged about all the women he dated, pointing them out on the many televisions he had in his home. “‘I dated her, I dated her, I dated her,’ he said in comments that I found inappropriate and disturbing,” according to Steele.

Olbermann did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.

In addition to blasting his work colleagues and political enemies, Olbermann has lashed out at his romantic partners, who included Fox broadcaster Laura Ingraham, former US Senator Kyrsten Sinema and MSNBC anchor Katy Tur, who he dated from 2006 to 2009. At the time she met him Tur was 23 and Olbermann was 47.

In 2022, Olbermann trashed Tur on his podcast in a segment he called “Things I Promised Never to Tell.”

“After I asked her to move out, I paid her rent in a New York apartment for a year so she could continue to live and work in New York,” he said on his podcast. “I paid off her college loans…I edited her Trump pieces, often rewriting them.”

He also accused Tur of alleged violence against him. “Six days after my appendectomy, she started punching and slapping me with intent to do real harm because the living room in our place wasn’t clean enough. How exactly do you even try to defend yourself against a woman 125 lbs lighter and a foot shorter than you?”

Tur could not be reached for comment this week, but noted in her 2022 book “Rough Draft: A Memoir” Olbermann had indeed helped her in her career, and she was known as “the bimbo” to their work colleagues.

While his career never suffered, long after they broke up, she said, “I was still ‘Keith Olbermann’s girlfriend’ to the industry…The whole experience was bruising,” Tur wrote.

Olbermann also dated former New York magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi, and spilled details about their relationship after Nuzzi was outed over a year-long “sexting” affair with Robert Kennedy Jr. during his independent run for president. Olbermann said he dated Nuzzi for three years beginning when she was 21 and he was 55.

“Eventually and inevitably this story will get around to me because long ago she and I lived together,” the egomaniac said last year on his podcast, after The Post contacted him about the relationship.

“We had dogs and tattoos and rings. And like all relationships, it was very nice at the start, then things happened, and we worked on it and it ended.”

Olbermann said he got his first dog, a Maltese he named Stevie after the singer Stevie Nicks, while he was dating Nuzzi in 2012. He referred to Nuzzi as TFGF — “the former girlfriend” on his podcast.

“He always had a lot of girlfriends,” said Sage, the former agent. “I don’t know why they didn’t work out but I always saw him as a bachelor. He’s a very difficult person.”