Wow.
Via Mediaite:
Fox News anchor and author Gretchen Carlson is filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against CEO Roger Ailes
Carlson took to social media to confirm moments ago that she is no longer with Fox News, releasing a brief statement onto her Facebook page.
CNN’s Brian Stelter took to Twitter with the following information, and POLITICO’s Hadas Gold confirmed that details are soon emerging.
CNN’s Tom Kludt released a revealing statement that reads in-part:
“One of the media industry’s most powerful figures fired a longtime on-air personality because she refused to sleep with him and reported disparaging treatment in the newsroom.
Such are the key allegations in a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed today by Fox News host Gretchen Carlson against the network’s chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.”:
Update:
She also claims harassement by Steve Doocy, although he is not a named party to the suit.
According to the complaint, "When Carlson met with Ailes to discuss the discriminatory treatment to which she was being subjected, Ailes stated: 'I think you and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago and then you'd be good and better and I'd be good and better,' adding that 'sometimes problems are easier to solve' that way. Carlson rebuffed Ailes' sexual demands at that meeting, and nine months later, Ailes ended her career at Fox News."
Carlson, who worked at CBS on its Saturday morning show, joined Fox News in 2005, has interviewed many prominent politicians and celebrities, and spent 7 1/2 years as a co-host on Fox & Friends. Most recently, she's been leading the program, The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson.
In 2009, Carlson says she complained to a supervisor that Steve Doocy, one of her co-hosts on Fox & Friends, "had created a hostile work environment by regularly treating her in a sexist and condescending way, including by putting his hand on her and pulling down her arm to shush her during a live telecast."
Carlson accuses Doocy of "severe and pervasive sexual harassment" off the air and "generally attempting to put her in her place by refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop."
But complaints about Doocy (who isn't named as a co-defendant) allegedly went nowhere.