Former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes was hit with fresh allegations of sexual harassment when former host Andrea Tantaros filed a lawsuit against the network, Ailes and a host of other Fox executives according to reports on Thursday (24 August).
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After she rebuffed sexual harassment by Ailes and his efforts to engage in inappropriate conversations about Fox News employees, Tantaros charges that Ailes retaliated, moving her from 5 p.m.to the noon show Outnumbered. Her lawsuit states, “Fox News masquerades as a defender of traditional family values, but behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny”.
“There were never any circumstances of any kind whatsoever in which I had any interaction with her or any other employee at Fox, outside the studio”, Brown said.
Brown, a frequent contributor as a political commentator on the news network, allegedly made inappropriate comments to Tantaros last summer while on set for an appearance on “Outnumbered”. While nothing has been heard from Bill O’Reilly yet on the accusations against him, Brown jumped right on the accusations denying that they are true. Scott Brown of Rye of sexual harassment in a lawsuit against former network chief Roger Ailes and five others. Her lawsuit contends she was let go because she complained of being sexually harassed.
Amid all the jaw-dropping claims is a false claim, that the blog TVNewser was “created and controlled” by Ailes. She claims Murdoch and his executive son, Lachlan Murdoch, knew about the harassment and did nothing to stop it. This month, NY magazine’s Gabriel Sherman wrote about a “Black Room” on that floor of the Fox News operation, established “around 2011 to conduct PR and surveillance campaigns against people” targeted by now-deposed Fox News chief Roger Ailes. “His commitment to me has never, ever been in question”.
The lawsuit, whose defendants include Fox News co-president Bill Shine, communications chief Irena Briganti, general counsel Dianne Brandi and Suzanne Scott, executive vice president of programming and development, comes two weeks after Tantaros made her allegations in an article in NY magazine.
Brown also pointed out that he does not go to clubs and that he treated everyone in the NY studio the same regardless of their gender. In fact, I have worked more this year than any other year. Fox News has declined to comment on the complaint, citing the widely invoked ongoing-litigation-no-comment clause.
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“I’m baffled as to why, I guess, I’m even mentioned in this”, Brown added later in the interview. “I go in and do my shows and then I leave”, he said.
