The Slatest

Fox Business Network Host Suspended Following Latest Round of Sexual Harassment Allegations at Fox

NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 05: ‘Varney & Co.’ host Charles Payne reports on the stock market opening a day after a 500+ point sell off at FOX Studios on August 5, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images)

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The trouble for the Fox News Group and its parent company 21st Century Fox continued Thursday, as Fox Business Network suspended host Charles Payne while the network investigates sexual harassment allegations made by a political analyst and frequent guest on both Fox News and Fox Business Network. The 56-year-old host of Making Money admitted to having a three-year extramarital affair with the woman on Wednesday.

From the Los Angeles Times:

That relationship is now being reviewed after the woman contacted Fox’s law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison last month to report her allegations of sexual misconduct. The woman, who worked for CNN last year, had a representative tell the firm she believed she was eventually blackballed from the network after she ended the affair in 2015 and tried to report Payne to top executives at Fox News, according to two sources familiar with her complaint.

The woman was never an employee of Fox News, but appeared as a guest across numerous Fox News and Fox Business Network programs with the hope of becoming a paid contributor. She has told her lawyer, who is preparing a legal complaint against Fox News and Payne, that she stayed in the relationship because she believed he would help her chances of landing a position at the network, according to the sources. Instead, the woman is alleging, after she ended the affair her appearances were drastically reduced, the sources say… According to the sources, the woman told her lawyer that from March 2015 to March 2016 she made several unsuccessful attempts to discuss her situation with Payne with former Fox News executive Bill Shine, who was head of programming at the time. Shine left Fox News on May 1.

An attorney for Payne denied the allegations. “We take issues of this nature extremely seriously and have a zero-tolerance policy for any professional misconduct,” a Fox Business Network representative said in a statement. “This matter is being thoroughly investigated and we are taking all of the appropriate steps to reach a resolution in a timely manner.”

The allegations leveled against the Fox host continue a run of harassment claims made against the network’s top brass and biggest stars. Former host Gretchen Carlson sued Fox News head Roger Ailes last year alleging persistent sexual harassment. Ailes was ultimately fired by the network in July 2016. Earlier this year, the network fired its longtime host Bill O’Reilly after a raft of harassment claims, some dating back years, came to the surface.