“Fox News masquerades as 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”.
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In the lawsuit, Tantaros says on August 18 of past year, when Brown appeared on her show Outnumbered, he “made a number of sexually inappropriate comments to Tantaros on set”.
The lawsuit brings in Bill Shine, who as co-president of Fox News has taken over many of Ailes’ duties since the network founder resigned.
The claims came a week after the New York Times reported that Ailes, 76, was helping Trump prepare for debates with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Former Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson in July filed a lawsuit making similar harassment allegations against Ailes, but unlike Tantaros she did not claim she was silenced by other Fox executives. He’s denied the charges.
Tantaros said former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and Fox News correspondent John Roberts allegedly had made sexually inappropriate comments. The network said the reason for her absence was a contract dispute around her book “Tied Up in Knots”. The lawsuit claims she immediately told him to stop.
Tantaros told top executives at Fox News on multiple occasions about Ailes and in response, the co-president of the company, Bill Shine, told her that Ailes was a “very powerful man” and that she “needed to let this one go”, the allegations claim. “I [have never] touched Andrea Tantaros except to shake her hand and say good morning”, he said.
She charged that top Fox network executives “punished” her for complaining about sexual harassment in the workplace.
The suit also alleged she was the target of nasty comments online from fake accounts “operated by Fox News’s media relations department created to make it appear that they were maintained by persons unrelated to Fox News”.
The lawsuit also states that Ailes was not alone in his actions.
Ms. Tantaros is seeking millions of dollars in damages from Fox News and the other defendants.
Brown has denied the allegations, tweeting, “As a survivor of sexual abuse, I would never perpetuate language or actions as described in FOX complaint”.
Tantaros legal battles with Fox began last winter when the network said she had breached her employment contract by writing a book without getting clearance.
Tantaros, who complained to superiors about Brown’s conduct, outlines her complaint in a lawsuit filed Monday in the New York Supreme Court. He said this to the Boston Globe: “Her statement about our limited on air, green room interactions are false.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”.
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A representative for O’Reilly hasn’t returned a request for comment.
