Greta Van Susteren To Leave Fox News, Right After Gretchen Carlson Takes $20 Million Settlement
Greta van Susteren will be leaving Fox News, a surprise announcement made just minutes after her colleague Gretchen Carlson settled her lawsuit against former chief Roger Ailes for $20 million stated.
As The Hill reports, van Susteren gave no reason for her sudden departure and neither did executives at Fox News. A statement from the cable news outlet thanked the former On the Record anchor for her years of service and then praised the man who would be taking her place, panelist Brit Hume.
“As one of the best political analysts in the industry, Brit is the ideal choice to host a nightly political program while the most dynamic and captivating election in recent history unfolds,” Abernethy and Shine said in a joint statement. Having Brit at the helm of this show will enable FOX News to continue on track to have its highest-rated year even as the network dominates the cable news landscape.”
“I am happy to take on this assignment for the balance of this extraordinary election. My FOX News colleagues have set a high standard for political coverage which I’ll do my best to uphold.”
So why is Greta van Susteren leaving Fox News? Although no one appears to be saying much about it, the timing is clearly suspect. Literally, moments before she announced her departure, van Susteren’s Fox News colleague, Gretchen Carlson, settled her lawsuit against the cable news channel over allegations of sexual harassment against former boss Roger Ailes.
As previously reported by The Inquisitr, back on July 6, 2016, Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against then-Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. Specifically, she claimed that she had been fired from her job for refusing Ailes’ sexual advances. Though the allegations seemed damning and outrageous at the time, it quickly became apparent that Carlson wasn’t alone in accusing Ailes of sexual harassment. In the ensuing weeks, at least 20 other women stepped forward to accuse Ailes of sexual harassment, according to Law Newz.
Roger Ailes went from scandal to presidential campaign adviser. That’s weird, right? https://t.co/0ss4AWBLX5 pic.twitter.com/DwKlWy6QHI
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) September 6, 2016
Six of those women spoke to New York Magazine in July.
Kellie Boyle, a Former Republican National Committee field adviser, claimed that Ailes had sexually harassed her back in 1989. At the time the two had been making polite conversation over a dinner date, something Boyle viewed as a professional meeting and nothing more. But Ailes had other intentions.
“He said, ‘Well, you might have to give a blow job every once in a while.’ I told him I was going to have to think about this. He said, ‘No, if you don’t do it now, you know that means you won’t.'”
Another woman, former model Marsha Callahan, alleged abuse going back to the late 1960’s. She claimed that on one specific night in 1967 or 1968, when she was working as a model, he began talking to her about various poses he suggested she try, becoming more and more inappropriate as the conversation progressed. Eventually, he suggested that Boyle go to bed with him and “a few of [his] select friends.”
Other women reported similar stories of sexual harassment going back years or even decades.
On July 21, Ailes resigned from Fox News. He declined to comment on the allegations against him, but instead said that he didn’t want his presence at the network to become a “distraction.” Carlson called his resignation a “victory.”
As of this writing, it is unclear what Greta van Susteren will do with her career now that Fox News is in her rear-view mirror. She has declined to publicly comment on her leaving.
[Photo via Charles Dharapak/AP Photo]
