The Slatest

New Ailes Sexual Harassment Charge Points to Cover-Up at Fox News

Fox News anchor Andrea Tantaros at an event to welcome then-newlyweds Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries at Capitale on Aug. 31, 2011 in New York City.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Earlier this year, Fox News demoted and took off the air a woman who had made multiple allegations of sexual harassment against then–network chairman and CEO Roger Ailes. That was the latest revelation from Ailes biographer Gabriel Sherman, who reported on Monday in New York magazine that Andrea Tantaros had been pulled from the air in April after filing the complaints.

Ailes resigned as the head the network last month when a flood of allegations, reportedly from more than 20 women, emerged after former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a lawsuit against Ailes in July alleging harassment.

The latest episode, as Sherman notes, could potentially demonstrate that Fox News senior executives knew about harassment allegations against Ailes well before Carlson’s story became public, contrary to their claims.

The latest allegations, by former The Five and Outnumbered host Andrea Tantaros, were conveyed to Sherman via her lawyer Judd Burstein, who said she decided to speak out and risk violating her confidentiality clause because “she doesn’t have the same fear of being attacked by the Fox PR machine, and the Murdochs have made it clear they want to clean up the place.”

If the family that owns 20th Century Fox is actually serious about cleaning house, it appears they would have a lot more work to do.

The story itself is another one of reportedly escalating harassment by Ailes followed by apparent retaliation when that harassment was rebuffed. But the new wrinkle is how top Fox News executives reportedly ignored the harassment complaints that were brought directly to them, and in one case even tried to stymie them.

“[Tantaros] made multiple harassment and hostile-workplace complaints,” her lawyer says, including reports from both her and her agent to Fox executive vice president Bill Shine, senior vice president Suzanne Scott, and general counsel Dianne Brandi.

If the following allegations are true and Fox News did nothing, Scott, Shine, and Brandi should be made to answer for enabling Ailes’ predatory behavior.

Here are the details of the harassment itself from New York magazine:

According to Tantaros’s account, Ailes began harassing her on August 12, 2014. During a meeting in Ailes’s office, Ailes allegedly asked Tantaros to do “the twirl” so he could see her figure. She refused. Then, in mid-December of that year, Ailes made another advance, Burstein says. “Ailes asked her to turn around, and then he said, ‘Come over here so I can give you a hug.’ ” Tantaros rebuffed the advance, Burstein says.

In February 2015, Tantaros was pulled off the 5 p.m. program The Five and demoted to working full-time on the midday show Outnumbered. In February 2015, according to Burstein, Ailes allegedly harassed Tantaros again in his office, asking about her workout routine because her body “looked good” and mentioning that she must “really look good in a bikini.”

On April 30, 2015, Tantaros filed a formal workplace harassment complaint about Ailes to Shine, Burstein says. The following day, Burstein says, Tantaros met with Shine to further discuss her harassment claims. Shine allegedly told her, “Roger is a very powerful man,” and that she “should not fight this.”

Tantaros was suspended with pay this past April—one year after the formal complaint—after continuing to complain to executives and having already been demoted in her hosting duties.

Fox News denies that she was suspended for reporting harassment. They claimed that she was removed from the air because she didn’t run her book by the network in violation of apparent company policy. The cover of the book, Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What They Wanted Has Made Women Miserable, featured Tantaros tied up in ropes and reportedly embarrassed the network, which is the justification Fox attorneys gave for the punishment.