Gretchen Carlson’s team struck back at Roger Ailes on Friday, challenging the longtime chairman of the Fox News Channel, a division of 21st Century Fox (FOXA), to deny her allegations of sexual harassment in a court of law.
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Since filing the lawsuit Carlson’s lawyer has said that more than dozen women have contacted her to describe similar instances of sexual harassment.
Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Brian Kilmeade when the trio co-hosted Fox & Friends.
Carlson, a top Fox personality, had been with the network for more than a decade. “We take these matters seriously. The latest allegations, all 30 to 50 years old, are false”. Executives at the large entertainment conglomerate said Wednesday that they would conduct an “internal review” of the allegations against Ailes and Doocy.
Ailes said that Carlson began to “conveniently” pursue a lawsuit when she became aware that Fox was not renewing her contract, citing poor ratings. When she refused, he said, “Well you know no girls here get a job unless they’re cooperative”, according to her personal account. “There is no legal basis upon which she can rightfully assert that she was entitled to sue Defendant Ailes in court and sully his reputation in public”.
Ailes also called the allegations “offensive, wholly without merit”.
“I recall very clearly, he said he’d put me on the show but I needed to go to bed with him”, Callahan said in the interview.
“Gretchen Carlson’s allegations are false”. Listen, having toured as a stand up comic on the road for 25 years makes me the furthest thing from a prude (and each day I give thanks there were no smartphones to record the ’80s or ’90s) so I’m not coming from an old schoolmarm point of view.
The accusations follow that made by former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who filed a lawsuit Wednesday claiming that she was sacked for refusing to sleep with Ailes and that he didn’t take it well when she complained about sexism in the workplace. Another woman, Marsha Callahan, now 73, is a former model who told the magazine she met Ailes in the late ’60s when he was producing The Mike Douglas Show.
Smith said she had “very strong evidence” against Ailes that she looked forward to presenting in court.
“So I go into his office and right away he says, ‘Sit on the sofa and lift your skirt up.’ I had to do these different poses”. I felt I was being used for his sexual satisfaction. What he’s going to find is that in America at least, and maybe around the world, the tide is turning on this kind of treatment of women.
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The denied opportunities included “severely curtailing her appearances as a guest commentator on prime time shows” and “blocking her from appearing as a substitute host on prime time or daytime panel shows”. No offense.’ He said, ‘Well, we’ll be in touch.’ And that was that.
