During the George W. Bush and Barack Obama years, conservative journalist Gretchen Carlson was a prominent figure on Fox News — co-hosting the morning show “Fox & Friends” for eight years before her own show, “The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson,” debuted in 2013. But Carlson became persona non grata at Fox News after filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against chairman/CEO Roger Ailes (who died in 2017).
A decade after her departure from Fox News, Carlson, now 60, discusses her battle with the right-wing cable news channel in an interview with The Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis.
Carlson said of her lawsuit, filed in July 2016, “I have absolutely no regrets. I had no idea what was going to happen to me when I actually filed it 10 years ago. I thought I might be crying my eyes out for the rest of my life. Immediately, I found purpose.”
Carlson alleged that she was fired from Fox News because she resisted Ailes’ advances. And she isn’t the only Fox News host who alleged sexual harassment; others include Megyn Kelly, now with SiriusXM, and Andrea Tantaros.
Since leaving Fox News, Carlson has been outspoken about sexual harassment in the workplace — co-founding the group Lift Our Voices with ally Julie Roginsky in 2019.
Carlson said of Lift Our Voices, “Our main mission is to eradicate silencing mechanisms in the workplace. It’s that simple.”
The Guardian’s Victoria Bekiempis explains, “Lift Our Voices has pushed for legislation to end nondisclosure agreements and forced arbitration in relation to these issues. They have already seen successes: then-President Joe Biden, in 2022, signed into law the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. The legislation gives all sexual assault and harassment survivors the right to sue in court against their abusers, instead of being forced into secretive private arbitration.”
Carlson told The Guardian, “We, as Americans, have no idea what the mental health impact has been on people facing these kinds of experiences in their life, and on top of that, being silenced about it. We know it can’t be good…. I always say that I may never own my own story, because I’m still under a very stringent NDA, which is why I can’t talk about the details of my case. But the work that I do every day is helping millions of people. It gives me great happiness to know that all of these other people have the possibility of getting justice. It’s work I never thought I’d be doing, but it gives me great, great satisfaction.”