Tucker Carlson is facing a lawsuit from his former head of booking, Abby Grossberg, who says she was subjected to a hostile and discriminatory work environment.
Ms. Grossberg, who was fired by Fox News shortly after she filed two lawsuits against the company in March, joined Mr. Carlson’s team in 2022 after several years as a senior producer for Maria Bartiromo, another Fox host.
Ms. Grossberg said in the lawsuit naming Mr. Carlson that male producers regularly used vulgarities to describe women and frequently made antisemitic jokes.
On her first day working for Mr. Carlson, Ms. Grossberg said she discovered the office was decorated with large doctored pictures of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit. She said she was once called into the top producer’s office to be asked whether Ms. Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy.
Ms. Grossberg also said in her lawsuit that after she was coerced by Fox’s lawyers into providing a misleading deposition in a recent defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems and defending an offensive text from Mr. Carlson, his producers emailed the rest of the staff in recognition of “Abby Day” and suggested ordering a staff lunch to celebrate.
Fox has disputed Ms. Grossberg’s claims, and Mr. Carlson hasn’t said anything publicly about the case.
“We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees,” a Fox News spokeswoman said.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, also names Fox Corporation, Fox News, some network executives and several of Mr. Carlson’s producers as defendants.
In a statement on Monday, one of Ms. Grossberg’s attorneys, Tanvir Rahman, said that Mr. Carlson’s departure from Fox News “is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying and conspiracy mongering claimed by our client.” Mr. Rahman said that the legal team would be taking Mr. Carlson’s deposition and those of his subordinates “in the very near term.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nytimes.com
