Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes also mentioned “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy, but the majority was about the former CEO of the network.
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Now Andrea Tantaros is joining Carlson by filing her own lawsuit alleging retaliation by Ailes after she tried to complain about harassment by Ailes and other men at Fox News.
A former host at Fox News has filed a lawsuit against executives at the company who punished her for complaining about Roger Ailes’ harassment. Fox News has stated Tantaros fabricated the sexual harassment claims because of an ongoing contractual dispute over a book they say she penned without first seeking network consent.
“Ailes did not act alone”, the lawsuit said. He also allegedly questioned her about her colleagues’ sex lives and sexual preferences, and made demeaning, racially-fueled comments about other employees in her presence. “The arbitration provision in Tantaros’s employment agreement with Fox News ishighly unusual in that it specifically provides that publicly revealing anything about the existence or course of an arbitration is a material breach of the arbitration provision itself”.
The Tantaros lawsuit goes even further than Carlson’s in naming Fox News Network as a defendant, as well as Bill Shine, who was recently named co-president of the company.
The suit claims Tantaros tried to discuss how Ailes was behaving with Shine, but to no avail.
Tantaros claims Fox News executive vice president Dianne Brandi informed her that she would no longer appear on the O’Reilly Factor after her complaints.
Ailes resigned last month when former anchor Gretchen Carlson sued, claiming she was sacked for refusing Ailes’ advances.
Brown speculated that Tantaros added his name to the lawsuit to “back up her claim that there was some type of playboy atmosphere”. She would also be disallowed from discussing her experiences at Fox News in perpetuity.
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. And that’s when women came forward, we believe more than 20 women came forward speaking to the law firm about their experiences with Ailes. Secondly, I had little if any cotact [sic] with Ms Tantaros and always treated her and every other employee at Fox with professionalism.
In response to her refusal to comply with Ailes’ multiple harassing requests, Tantaros’ claims she was humiliated on social media by “sock puppet accounts” set up by Fox News publicity department.
Fox News said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
“Perhaps the most shocking encounter of all was a Spring 2015 meeting between Tantaros and Fox News Senior Executive, Defendant William Shine (‘Shine”), during which Tantaros sought relief from Ailes’s sexual harassment…
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Ailes’ lawyer, Susan Estrich, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
