Ed Henry, Former Fox News Host, Is Accused Of Raping Fellow Employee In New Lawsuit

New allegations of some very disturbing misconduct have just surfaced against several employees of Fox News. Ed Henry, a former host at Fox, is being accused of rape in the most serious of the allegations. The lawsuit also says he retaliated against two women who ignored his sexual advances. Sexual harassment against three other Fox News hosts has also been detailed in the suit.

The lawsuit was brought on Monday by Jennifer Eckhart, a former Fox Business Network producer and online personality. She made the rape allegation against Henry. Cathy Areu, a journalist who appeared frequently on Fox News, is also involved in the lawsuit, claiming sexual harassment and misconduct by Henry, as well.

All of the allegations are extremely unsettling. While Henry was abruptly fired from the network on July 1 of this year, his lawyer is claiming that all of the allegations are false. Fox fired the host after a claim of sexual harassment surfaced from years prior, the network said.

"On Thursday, June 25, we received a complaint about Ed Henry from a former employee's attorney involving willful sexual misconduct in the workplace years ago," Fox News chief executive Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace wrote in an email to employees. Henry was "suspended the same day and removed from his on-air responsibilities" while a third-party law firm investigated the matter, they said. "Based on investigative findings, Ed has been terminated."

Henry's troubles are only just beginning, it looks like. Now he's facing a far more serious consequence of those allegations than his firing — a rape lawsuit. Catherine Foti, an attorney representing Henry, said in a statement that Henry engaged in a consensual relationship with Eckhart but denies that a rape ever took place.

The lawsuit is disturbing and describes a predator wielding his power over a recent journalism school graduate. It says that Henry began flirting with Eckhart in 2014, but Eckhart made clear she was "not romantically interested" in Henry. Either way, she agreed to have drinks with him one night. He then invited her to his room, where he "ripped off her clothes." She says she was fearful of what would happen to her career if she didn't comply, and they had intercourse.

Afterward, Eckhart claims she tried to turn down his consistent advances, but they continued. She says that in September 2015, Henry forced her to perform oral sex on him in a guest office at Fox News' New York City headquarters. The forceful advances and harassment continued. Then in 2017, the lawsuit said, Eckhart agreed to meet Henry for another drink. That's when she says he raped her.

 

Henry told Eckhart he was about to be promoted to an anchor role, and he invited Eckhart "to take a walk and discuss her career at his hotel." When they entered his hotel room, the lawsuit claims he applied handcuffs to her wrists and took naked photographs of her while she begged him to stop. Then he forcefully raped her, the lawsuit alleges. She also claims he hit her multiple times in the face during that encounter.

At that point, Eckhart tried to cease communications with Henry. She says she notified Fox News and her supervisor in February of this year that she was "experiencing a toxic work environment," but no one followed up with her. Then the company informed her that she would be terminated.

While Eckhart's claims against Henry are certainly the most serious, they are not the only ones. The lawsuit also describes unwanted sexual advances made toward Cathy Areu. She says Henry sent her "a slew of widely inappropriate sexual images and messages" in 2020. One of those was a video of a mock job interview where the woman exposes her vagina and gets hired for a job, which is pretty striking because Areu claims that Henry knew she wanted to be hired by Fox and was implying sexual acts would help her.

The lawsuit also points to a toxic workplace that accepts and thrives on this kind of misconduct from powerful men. It claims sexual harassment by Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Howard Kurtz. Areu alleges that when she did not comply with each of the men's advances, her appearances on their shows were dramatically reduced.

Fox News has a history of sexual misconduct claims against powerful men on the network. Bill O'Reilly's 21-year career came to an end after allegations of sexual misconduct broke back in 2017. At the time, he said the claims were completely "unfounded."

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Fox News spokesperson says the network did its part by firing Henry when it heard about misconduct. But it also rejected claims of harassment regarding the three other hosts. "We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed — in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations," the Fox News spokesperson said.