After a tense year that led to the exit of chairman Roger Ailes, longtime host Bill O’Relly, and most recently Eric Bolling, Fox News is now facing more scandal stemming from reported sexual misconduct at the network. Fox Business host Charles Payne had been suspended during the summer pending an investigation into allegations of misconduct. Payne has since returned from his suspension, but his accuser is now suing the network and alleging she was raped by the host — a claim that she also says led to her blacklisting at the network.
Scottie Nell Hughes initially went to Fox News with the sexual misconduct allegations against Payne in June. This was followed by a National Enquirer article featuring Payne admitting to a “romantic affair” and several reports at other outlets that identified Hughes as the one reporting the incident. Hughes’ lawsuit alleges that her relationship with Payne was far more troubling than reports had led on, and the network used it to retaliate against her when she ended it according to the New York Times:
In her lawsuit, Ms. Hughes said that Mr. Payne had “pressured” his way into her hotel room in July 2013 and coerced her to have sexual intercourse with him, even though she had refused his advances by telling him “no” and “stop.”
According to the suit, Ms. Hughes was “shocked and ashamed” and did not immediately report the episode. She said that over the next two years she was forced to engage in a sexual relationship with Mr. Payne. In exchange, she said, she received career opportunities, including increased appearances on Fox News and Fox Business and the promise that Mr. Payne would help her land a contributor contract, a job that can pay several hundred thousand dollars a year. Ms. Hughes never became a paid contributor at either channel.
Ms. Hughes, a regular guest on Fox News and Fox Business from 2013 through 2016, asserted that after she ended the relationship with Mr. Payne, the network blacklisted her. After she reported her allegations against him, she said, the network leaked a story to the news media about a romantic affair between Ms. Hughes and Mr. Payne.
According to an interview with Hughes addressing the allegations in her lawsuit, she claims to have been “living an absolute hell” and adding that “In July of 2013, I was raped by Charles Payne. In July of 2017, I was raped again by Fox News.”
2. Fox News has responded with a very strongly worded statement re Scottie Nell Hughes' lawsuit. pic.twitter.com/snQC1lVpGD
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) September 19, 2017
The suit names 21st Century Fox, Fox News, Payne, and Fox News executives Irena Briganti and Dianne Brandi. The lawsuit alleges that both Briganti and Brandi “knowingly and maliciously aided” the retaliation against Hughes and were behind the release of a “false narrative to The National Enquirer.” The network and representatives for Payne have responded to the lawsuit, calling it “bogus” and “downright shameful”:
Mr. Payne’s lawyer, Jonathan N. Halpern, said in a statement on Monday that his client ”vehemently denies any wrongdoing and will defend himself vigorously against this baseless complaint.”
“We are confident that when the evidence is presented in this case,” he continued, “Mr. Payne will be fully vindicated and these outrageous accusations against him will be confirmed as completely false…
“We will vigorously defend this,” the network said in a statement. Fox News also said that the case was a “publicity stunt of a lawsuit” by Ms. Hughes’s lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor.
Hughes also claims that the alleged blacklisting by Fox has affected her work elsewhere on cable news, with the New York Times adding that the claims that she had an affair with a Fox News employee had prevented Hughes from consideration for a position with the Trump administration.
The allegations could be the most serious to face the network since the ouster of Ailes, creating further trouble for the network as they continue to try and move away from the reported misconduct of the past.
(Via New York Times)