Former Fox News host says Roger Ailes secretly watched female employees 'disrobe'
Former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros has accused former Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who is deceased, of secretly recording video of female employees including Tantaros in their offices and other rooms where they frequently disrobed.
The new allegations came out Monday in court papers that Tantaros submitted on her own behalf. Tantaros earlier filed the lawsuit against Fox News and Ailes in April 2017, in which she accused senior executives at Fox News of hacking her electronic devices and harassing her on social media. Tantaros filed another complaint in August 2016, which was rejected due to an arbitration clause of her employee contract, where she accused the late Ailes and former host Bill O'Reilly of sexual harassment.
In Tantaros' latest filing, she describes a closed-circuit television system that allowed Ailes to monitor the Fox offices:
Fox offices are where most Fox female talent, including Ms. Tantaros, disrobed daily from their regular day-to-day clothing into their on-air attire, sometimes multiple times a day depending on how many appearances they had. There was also a bi-annual trunk show in the Spring and Fall conducted by Fox’s wardrobe department. The trunk show was held in empty Fox offices and female talent was expected to disrobe down to their undergarments to try on new on-air dresses for the next season, without even the benefit of a curtain. The dresses were pre-selected for the women by the wardrobe department before their arrival; pants were not an option. Upon information and belief, Ailes was recording female employees disrobe without their consent in their offices and during the bi-annual trunk show
Tantaros' complaint also alleges that the company installed spyware on her laptop and that a forensic investigation by a firm she hired found Fox News could turn on the microphones and cameras on employees' phones without their knowledge.
Tantaros is currently representing herself in this case after a lawyer connected to her original 2017 complaint withdrew. Several lawyers were working on her case, according to court documents.
In a statement to Mashable, Fox News pointed out that none of the lawyers representing Tantaros signed her amendment, and said, "her outlandish claims lack any factual basis."
Tantaros acknowledges that she filed the legal paperwork on her own in a letter to the judge preceding her amended complaint.
"Some stories can only be properly articulated and accurately explained by the ones who have walked in the shoes that have led them down a particularly challenging road," she wrote. "At times, even the finest lawyers in America cannot contextualize exactly what this company has done to so many people, and exactly what has transpired behind the curtain at Fox News."
Other former female Fox News employees including Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly have alleged sexual harassment against Ailes, which led to his ousting from Fox News less than a year before his death in May 2017.
Fox News is currently under federal investigation regarding its network managers and business practices.
UPDATE: Jan. 30, 2018, 5:16 p.m. EST Here is the Fox News statement in full: "Fox News moved for sanctions against the lawyer who filed Andrea Tantaros’ original lawsuit and he has since withdrawn. None of the four lawyers currently representing Tantaros in the action signed her new complaint, which she purports to have written herself. Her outlandish claims lack any factual basis."
