Both Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes may be gone from Fox News, but the things they allegedly did to get fired in the first place haven’t simply disappeared along with their careers. Earlier this month, we reported that former Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky had filed a lawsuit against the network for supposedly denying her a “deserved promotion” because she wouldn’t have sex with Ailes—who was the network’s president at the time—and now Variety is reporting that another former anchor has stepped forward with allegations against Ailes.
Alisyn Camerota works for CNN now, but she was a reporter and weekend anchor with Fox News for over a decade. Speaking with CNN’s Brian Stelter, she said she was “targeted by Ailes,” and specifically stated, “Yes, Roger Ailes did sexually harass me.” Camerota says Ailes “could be quite charismatic” and “uproariously funny,” but he’s also “a bit of a bully” who would be “grossly inappropriate with things that he would say.” She says he’d talk about her body, tell her “give me a spin,” and would “want to be greeted with a hug.”
If that’s not gross enough, Camerota once told Ailes she wanted to take on more responsibility at the network, which prompted him to say that the two of them might have to work more “closely” with each other and it “might have to happen at a hotel.” She never went to a hotel with Ailes or told anyone what he said, but from that point on, she says that he started engaging in “emotional harassment” by berating her for the way she’d present the news.
These days, Camerota believes that the firing of O’Reilly and Ailes means that the culture is really changing at Fox News, but it remains to be seen if that’s really the case.