Fox News host Andrea Tantaros says she was benched after Roger Ailes sexual harassment complaints

Andrea Tantaros accuses Roger Ailes of sexual harassment
(Image credit: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)

Andrea Tantaros is the latest Fox News female employee to publicly accuse ousted chairman and CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, telling New York through her lawyer that she "made multiple harassment and hostile-workplace complaints" against Ailes, starting in April 2015, and that her complaints were why she was demoted from The Five to the midday show Outnumbered in February 2015, then benched this spring. In late 2014 and early 2015, Tantaros claims, Ailes told her in his private office that she must "really look good in a bikini" and unsuccessfully solicited an embrace. Tantaros has not been on the air at Fox News since April 25, and her lawyer, Judd Burstein, tells New York, "I believe it's retaliatory."

Tantaros is still being paid, though a "source close to the situation" tells Business Insider that she is likely to be fired soon. Fox News says Tantaros was pulled from the air for violating company policy, claiming she did not submit her latest book for approval by the network, as stipulated in her contract. Two sources familiar with the Tantaros legal dispute tell BuzzFeed the situation was more complicated, and that Fox News had investigated more than a dozen people while looking into her reports of abuse and harassment from at least five Fox News employees, none of whom was Ailes. Burstein, Tantaros' lawyer, says there was no such investigation and that BuzzFeed was being fed selectively misleading information.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.