Gretchen Carlson Is Talking About Those Allegations Against Roger Ailes
When Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes one week ago, she didn’t have much to say about it. Her lawyer, Nancy Erika Smith, did most of the talking. Not that she had to, of course; there was enough grossness in that lawsuit to get all the attention it needed on its own.
Since then, lots of people have had things to say about Gretchen’s lawsuit. Several women have come forward with their own accusations against Roger Ailes. Some people at Fox News have come to Roger’s defense, the most recent being talking blonde headache Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Geraldo Rivera, who described Roger as “about as flirty as the grizzly in The Revenant.” And then there’s Roger Ailes himself, who denies it all. Well, one week later, Gretchen is finally talking publicly about her lawsuit against the lumpy sack of inappropriate horniness.
Gretchen and two of her lawyers sat down with The New York Times to discuss the allegations and all that. Gretchen began by claiming that she had between 6 and 10 meetings with Roger about sexual harassment in the workplace that ended with him getting creepy about her body. She says the first meeting happened in 2009 after her Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy allegedly pulled her arm down to “quiet” her on air. According to her lawsuit, complaints about Steve Doocy got her labeled a “man-hater” by Roger Ailes. She claims that Roger’s language, like calling her a “man-hater“, was “continuous.” She adds that all of her complains to Roger went ignored, which isn’t exactly shocking news.
Roger Ailes wasn’t the only person Gretchen came for. She also took a swipe at Fox News. Gretchen claims Fox News did her dirty by taking all of “30 seconds” to let her know her contract wasn’t going to be renewed back in June. She says nobody thanked her for her 11 years at Fox News, and there was no discussion of why they were pushing her ass out the door. As we already know from Gretchen’s lawsuit, Gretchen thinks her quick termination was because she didn’t take Roger Ailes up on his offer of sex.
As for all the people at Fox News jumping up on their desks and shouting “O captain, my captain” to Roger Ailes, a la Dead Poets Society. Gretchen not-so-subtly suggests that those are the words coming from people who still get paid by Fox News, and they’re doing so because they don’t want to add the word “former” to the most recent position on their LinkedIn page.
Gretchen wouldn’t say if she complained to anyone else about her problems with Fox & Friends or Roger’s behavior. Her lawyers piped in and said they wanted to save that for the trial. She would only say that both the culture of Fox & Friends and Roger’s power at Fox News were “intimidating” to her. You can read the entire interview here. Gretchen ends the interview by saying the purpose of her lawsuit against Roger Ailes isn’t to get money or punish her sleazy boss, but to “stand up for what happened to me and what was the truth.”
Sadly, Gretchen didn’t comment on one of the biggest allegation lobbied at Roger Ailes thus far. I’m of course talking about the claim that his junk is red and looks like raw hamburger meat. Maybe Gretchen’s lawyers want to save that for the trial too. If I were that courtroom sketch artist, I’d probably start popping anti-nausea medicine right now to prepare my stomach just in case they call Roger’s penis and balls to the witness stand.
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