The good times continue to roll at Fox News, as just a few hours before the announcement that co-president Bill Shine had resigned, the network was hit with yet another lawsuit from a former contributor. According to Deadline, Diana Falzone has sued Fox News for “gender and disability discrimination,” claiming that she was “demoted, marginalized, humiliated, and discriminated against” by the network “because she is a woman” and “because she suffers from endometriosis.” Falzone used to be a regular guest on Fox & Friends, Hannity, and various Fox Business shows, but after writing a “supervisor approved” post about being diagnosed with endometriosis, she was told that higher-ups at the network—including Bill Shine—had chosen to permanently ban her from ever appearing on Fox News again. She was also banned from recording voiceovers for any programs or stories, including ones that she had worked on.
Falzone is asking for compensation for everything from lost wages and loss of retirement benefits to “pain, suffering, stress, humiliation, mental anguish, emotional harm, and personal physical injury.” As Deadline notes, she’s being represented by Nancy Erika Smith, the same attorney who worked on Gretchen Carlson’s sexual harassment case against against Fox News last year. In a statement, Smith said that Falzone was banned from the network after executives decided that she “no longer conformed to their image of on-air women as ‘physically perfect.’”
Fox News has yet to release an official statement about this lawsuit.