Andrea Tantaros Blasts Fox News on ‘GMA’: ‘Ailes Sexually Harassed Me Numerous Times’ (Video)

“I think a culture change at Fox News is in order,” she says

Andrea Tantaros roger ailes bill o'reilly sexual harassment allegations timeline recap lawsuit
Getty Images

Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros discussed her sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes on TV for the first time Tuesday morning, and didn’t hold back.

“I think a culture change at Fox News is in order,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“Ailes sexually harassed me numerous times,” Tantaros said. “I was walking to a taping once and just said simply ‘hello’ to him, and he said, ‘We need to get you a tighter dress.’”

Tantaros said she was offered a seven-figure deal to settle the lawsuit, but she refused to meet certain demands of the agreement, which included “internal silence.”

“Fox News has plenty of money, they’ve bought off a lot of women,” Tantaros said. “What they don’t have is accountability.”

A source familiar with the situation reached out to TheWrap to dispute the settlement claim, saying it was actually an agreement and a release form noting that Fox would continue to pay what Tantaros was entitled from her original contract.

Tantaros filed her lawsuit in August after Gretchen Carlson came forward as the first Ailes’ accuser to go public. Since Carlson’s claims, several other women have come forward, and Fox News settled with Carlson.

In her lawsuit, Tantaros called her gig at Fox News her “dream job,” but alleged that she was “the victim of demeaning conduct, such as being instructed to wear clothes that showed off her legs, and being required to annually pick on-air clothing in the middle of a room without the benefit of even a curtain, thereby forcing her to strip down in front of Fox News wardrobe personnel.”

Back in August, a person with knowledge of the legal situation told TheWrap that the sexual harassment issue is a way for Tantaros to “muddy the waters when the real issue is her contract.” The issue, that person said, is that Tantaros was suspended after she promoted her book, “Tied Up in Knots,” on the air without permission, failed to submit a publishing timeline, and did not provide a detailed outline of the book’s content, as required by her contract.

“You had to thank Roger Ailes or your book didn’t get published,”  Tantaros said on “GMA” when asked why she spoke about Ailes positively in her book.

Ailes has since resigned but continues to deny all allegations. In court documents, Fox News called Tantaros “not a victim” but “an opportunist.”

Watch the video below.

Comments