- A Fox News producer alleges Tucker Carlson's team posted photos of Nancy Pelosi in a bathing suit around the office.
- The employee filed a discrimination lawsuit against the network, accusing it of pervasive misogyny.
A Fox News producer alleges Tucker Carlson's team put images of Nancy Pelosi in a bathing suit around the office as a joke, according to a lawsuit.
The employee, Abby Grossberg, filed a discrimination lawsuit against Fox News, Carlson, and several executives and producers in Manhattan court on Monday.
In the suit, she says that on her first day working on the "Tucker Carlson Tonight" show in September 2022, "she was shocked to be greeted by many large and blown-up photographs of Nancy Pelosi in a plunging bathing suit revealing her cleavage."
"The images were plastered onto her computer and elsewhere throughout the office. Apparently, the 'joke' was that Speaker Pelosi looked terrible in a bathing suit," the lawsuit alleges.
Grossberg's lawsuit alleges the photos were one example of "how pervasive the misogyny and drive to
embarrass and objectify women was among the male staff at ["Tucker Carlson Tonight]."
The lawsuit also describes hostile and sexist behavior toward host Maria Bartiromo, who executives called "crazy," "menopausal," and "hysterical." A producer for a different Fox News show, the lawsuit alleges, called Bartiromo "not as credible as male anchors" at the network.
A spokesperson for Fox News previously said in a statement to Insider that the company "engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review."
"We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her claims," the statement continued.
The spokesperson did not comment on the allegations regarding sexism in the workplace or the alleged images of Nancy Pelosi.
Grossberg began working for Fox News in 2019 following over a decade of experience in other broadcast journalism organizations, according to the suit, first working for Bartiromo's show "Sunday Morning Futures."
She began working for Carlson's show "Tucker Carlson Tonight" in July 2022, before Fox News placed her on "forced administrative leave" on Monday, hours after it filed a preemptive lawsuit against her, Grossberg's suit says.
In her lawsuit, Grossberg alleges that while working on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," she was "isolated, overworked, undervalued, denied opportunities for promotion, and generally treated significantly worse than her male counterparts, even when those men were less qualified than her."
The lawsuit describes "overt sexism" among employees of Carlson's show.
On her second day working on the show, a producer asked Grossberg whether her former boss Bartiromo was "fucking Kevin McCarthy," the lawsuit says.
Ahead of an appearance on the show by then-candidate for Michigan governor, Tudor Dixon, staffers discussed "whether Ms. Dixon or her opponent, Governor Gretchen Whitmer, was 'hotter and more fuckable,'" the lawsuit alleges.
One producer, who himself had tattoos, agreed "that women with tattoos, nose piercings, or rainbow-colored hair were 'disgusting,'" according to the lawsuit. That same producer also declared that a room designated for Fox News employees to pump breast milk was a "waste of space" and should instead be replaced with a "room of tanning beds for the guys to tan their testicles," the lawsuit says.
When McCaskill complained about the show's environment with a higher-up producer, he told her to take it in stride, the lawsuit alleges.
"We're all under stress," the producer allegedly said, according to the lawsuit. "This is Tucker's tone and just the pace of the show."
But Grossberg's lawyer, Parisis Filippatos, says the lawsuit "very clearly depicts the victimization by Fox" of Grossberg and other female employees, adding that the Nancy Pelosi images are just one "graphic indication of the way the culture at Fox portrays women."
Grossberg's discrimination suit also alleges that lawyers for Fox News coerced her into giving misleading statements in her testimony during Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation case against Fox.
Fox News filed a lawsuit against Grossberg earlier on Monday, asking a judge to stop her from filing her lawsuit and claiming it would disclose legally privileged information, but the judge didn't rule on the case.
In its statement to Insider, Fox News said Grossberg's allegations about the Dominion case were false.