Kimberly Guilfoyle's Fox News Ouster: Details Surface on Sexual Misconduct Claims, Alleged Payoff Attempt
New details have surfaced regarding Kimberly Guilfoyle’s abrupt, July 2018 exit from Fox News and the allegations of inappropriate behavior — including sexual misconduct — that precipitated it.
At the time of Guilfoyle’s split with Fox News (where she had worked since 2006 and most notably co-hosted The Five), she tried to spin it as her own decision. But a July 2018 expose by HuffPo, based on interviews with 21 sources, revealed that allegations of misconduct had triggered an investigation by Fox’s HR department, which eventually led to Guilfoyle’s negotiated departure.
Flash-forward to a 3,600-word report by the New Yorker, published Thursday, which details a 42-page draft complaint made by one of Guilfoyle’s former assistants in November 2018. In the document, the onetime staffer accused Guilfoyle of repeated sexual harassment, and demanded monetary relief from Fox News. The New Yorker reports that Fox News agreed to pay the assistant “upward of $4 million” to avoid going to trial.
Guilfoyle — who is now a top fundraising official for President Trump’s reelection campaign, is Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, and who enjoyed a choice speaking spot at this summer’s Republican National Convention — said in a statement to the New Yorker, “In my 30-year career working for the SF District Attorney’s Office, the LA District Attorney’s Office, in media and in politics, I have never engaged in any workplace misconduct of any kind. During my career, I have served as a mentor to countless women, with many of whom I remain exceptionally close to this day.”
The New Yorker‘s detailed account of the draft complaint reveals, among other things, that Guilfoyle’s former assistant allegedly:
* Was subject to degrading, abusive, and sexually inappropriate behavior
* Was often required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment “while the Fox host displayed herself naked”
* Was shown “photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations”
* Was told by Guilfoyle to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, and was encouraged to sleep with wealthy and powerful men
* Was asked her to critique Guilfoyle’s naked body
The former assistant also alleged that Guilfoyle offered her cash and other perks in trade for her lying to the lawyers who were retained by Fox News in July 2016 to investigate larger issues of sexual misconduct at the company. When said overture was rebuffed, Guilfoyle allegedly warned the assistant that “some aspects of [her] private life… might be exposed.”
Again, the full report can be read at the New Yorker.
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