Rupert ‘ruined my life’
EX-FOX NEWS WORKER BLAMES MEDIA MOGUL FOR ALLOWING ‘ABUSIVE PREDATORS’ TO RULE NETWORK
A FORMER Fox News contributor who left the network after reporting sexual harassment says Rupert Murdoch ruined her life.
Tamara Holder, a lawyer who said she left her firm to take a gig with Fox, lashed out at the 86-year-old media mogul, who recently dismissed the sexual harassment scandals plaguing Fox News as “nonsense.”
“He ruined my life. I don’t have a job in TV anymore because the place that he has secured down like Fort Knox allowed abusive predators to prey on women who just wanted to work,” Holder told CNN on Sunday. “That is not ‘nonsense.’ This is people’s lives.”
Murdoch last week told Sky News, a British network owned by 21st Century Fox, that former chief executive Roger Ailes was the root of the problem, and that with his departure, all was well.
“It’s all nonsense. There was a problem with our chief executive. Sort of, over the years. But isolated incidents. As soon as we investigated it, he was out of the place in hours — well, three or four days. And there’s been nothing else since then,” Murdoch said.
Ailes, who died in May at 77, resigned last year after anchor Gretchen Carlson sued him for harassment. Former anchor Megyn Kelly also came forward with harassment allegations against Ailes, and Carlson’s lawyers claimed more than 20 women had said the same.
Murdoch omitted mention of Bill O’Reilly, who got the boot from the network last spring after The New York Times revealed millions were paid out to settle similar allegations.
Both men denied the allegations, despite the numerous credible accusers they faced in what became an early wave of women and men calling out famous and powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Matt Lauer.
“I’m stuck talking about this because there are people like Rupert Murdoch who continue to deny we were abused, that our careers were destroyed and our lives were destroyed,” Holder, 38, told CNN. “This is not political, this is people’s lives.”
The ex-contributor was also outraged over another Murdoch comment, in which he implied that some instances of office harassment were just “a bit of flirting.” “Let me be clear. I had a man pull out his penis in his office and shove my head on it. That was not flirting, that was criminal. That was not sexual harassment, there are no gray areas. This is criminal. And I’m not the only case. There are women who can’t speak out,” Holder said. Holder made no mention of her alleged abuser, but CNN reports that the man responsible was Francisco Cortes, who served as the vice president of Fox News Latino before he was fired after Holder complained in September 2016. Holder reportedly left the network when her contract expired at the beginning of this year, but said she’d accepted a multimillion-dollar payout to keep quiet about the incident and to stay away from any other Fox-owned businesses.