There’s a lot of speculation going around about why Fox News megastar Tucker Carlson got fired suddenly on Monday, but could the answer lie in a lawsuit against the popular host accusing him of perpetuating a misogynistic and sexist environment?
The woman, a Fox News producer named Abby Grossberg, filed a pair of lawsuits against the network last month, per the New York Times. She sued Carlson and a number of other producers last month, as well as Fox News and its parent company Fox. Grossberg claims Fox News discriminated based on religion, disability, and gender.
She said her work environment was full of “constant bullying and gaslighting,” which caused her “so much stress and anxiety that her stomach ulcers flared up and she was in excruciating pain.”
Grossberg started at Fox News as a senior booker for Maria Bartiromo, where she claimed male executives would call Bartiromo “crazy,” “menopausal,” “hysterical,” and a “diva.” She then moved to the head of booking and senior producer role for Tucker Carlson. The producer role, she said, was eventually taken away from her without her knowledge.
She said she was even blamed for the Dominion lawsuit against Fox because she wasn’t able to “manage” Bartiromo correctly. The stress at Carlson’s show was so great, she alleged, that she asked to take time off but was told, “We’re all under stress. This is Tucker’s tone and just the pace of the show.”
In the lawsuit, Grossberg describes coming in to work for Carlson on her first day and seeing “many large and blown-up photographs of Nancy Pelosi in a plunging bathing suit revealing her cleavage. The images were plastered onto her computer and elsewhere throughout the office.”
The next day, she was asked if Bartiromo was sleeping with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a question she said was wildly inappropriate and made her extremely uncomfortable. There were also “group discussions,” in which “misogynistic views of women as objects to be judged solely based on their appearance were broadcasted.”
The lawsuit said that no woman, regardless of occupation or political affiliation, was “safe from suddenly becoming the target of sexist, demeaning comments.”
For example, Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon was going to appear on the show, and the lawsuit alleges that the newsroom entered into a “crass and sexist discussion” about whether Dixon or her opponent Gretchen Whitmer was “hotter” and more desirable sexually.
“Such disgusting remarks were never made about men appearing on Carlson’s show,” the lawsuit said. While we’re not exactly sure why Carlson got fired, it seems like this wouldn’t be left out of the reasoning.
