Something untoward is a-brewing over at the Fox News Network. What’s that? The environment fostered behind the scenes of Tucker Carlson’s show reportedly isn’t professional or even just baseline humanely respectful toward women? You don’t say!
This news may not come as a shock to many of us who already view Carlson and his GOP crew of cronies as a bit of a troop of garbage people. However, Abby Grossberg, a former producer of Tucker Carlson Tonight who joined the show in September 2022, claims discrimination against women and people of the Jewish faith in a lawsuit against Carlson, Fox News, and a handful of other producers and executives who are connected to the show, according to reporting by The Independent.
Does it surprise anyone that people like Carlson and those who would choose to work for him would discriminate against women? Of course not. Is it surprising just how sick and childish things allegedly were? A major point of evidence in the lawsuit is the presence of “many large and blown-up photographs of Nancy Pelosi in a plunging bathing suit revealing her cleavage” hanging on the workplace wall, which were put there so the employees could ridicule her appearance, according to Grossberg.
“The images were plastered onto her computer and elsewhere throughout the office,” the court documents claim. “Apparently, the ‘joke’ was that Speaker Pelosi looked terrible in a bathing suit.” First of all, just a general WTF? Second of all, it’s not the former Speaker of the House’s job to look good in a bathing suit. Third of all, it is nobody’s job to look good in a bathing suit for anybody at Fox News.
Grossman’s suit claims that there was an attitude of “pervasive misogyny” and a drive among the male staff to “embarrass and objectify women.” The suit also says male staff argued over which female Michigan gubernatorial candidate was “hotter” and “more fu*kable,” and referred to a female Fox News host as “crazy,” “menopausal,” and “not as credible as male anchors.”
The suit also describes multiple instances of high-ups ridiculing Jewish staff for taking time off for important religious holidays, including Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana.
A spokesperson for Fox News said in a statement to Insider that they have “engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review,” and have filed a preemptive counter-lawsuit against Grossman. “We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her claims,” the statement said.
