Fox News Fires Producer Who Called Out Their ‘Vile, Sexist’ Work Environment

Abby Grossberg, the now-former Fox News producer who is being sued by the network, was fired on Friday after filing her own lawsuit against the network earlier in the week, according to an amended complaint filed in federal and state courts on Monday. Grossberg’s initial lawsuit itself concerns both rampant misogyny at network and its alleged conduct in the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News for repeatedly airing conspiracy theories about its equipment during the 2020 presidential election.

Less than a week after filing that lawsuit, Grossberg says the network “hammered the final nail into the coffin of Ms. Grossberg’s once-promising career” in television when it “publicly” fired her. Grossberg’s lead counsel Parisis G. Filippatos said in a statement to Jezebel that Fox News is engaging in “frivolous litigation tactics” in a “blatant disregard for the law.”

Grossberg had first worked for Fox anchor Maria Bartiromo, and then—noting that she “could no longer tolerate the toxic atmosphere victimizing women” on Bartiromo’s Sunday morning talk show—she accepted a new position on Tucker Carlson Tonight. (I have a lot of questions about this move.) In her new role as head of booking for Carlson’s primetime show, Grossberg claims she “continued to endure a work environment that subjugated women based on vile sexist stereotypes, typecasted religious minorities and belittled their traditions, and demonstrated little to no regard for those suffering from mental illness,” according to her lawsuit.

Carlson is infamously anti-immigrant, anti-woman, and pro-white nationalism, but I guess Grossberg needed to witness it for herself.

While the lawsuit makes a lot about the “misogynistic environment” that Grossberg claims she was subjected to while staffing these conservative shows, these lawsuits are being elevated beyond the usual conversation about harassment at Fox News because of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.

Grossberg claims that Fox News attorneys “coerced, intimidated, and misinformed Ms. Grossberg as they ‘prepared’ her in connection with the deposition testimony” she gave in the defamation lawsuit in September 2022. Grossberg has alleged that she and other women were being scapegoated in the Dominion suit to protect male employees and that the legal advice she was given opened her up to “civil and criminal liability for perjury.”

Grossberg said the network’s lawsuit against her came “within minutes” after she decided not to take a settlement from the the network on March 20. Grossberg’s lawsuit repeatedly characterizes Fox News’ actions, including placing her on forced administrative leave and its countersuit, as “unlawful retaliation.” That same day she was put on “forced administrative leave” and locked out of her network email.

The 102-page lawsuit details the harassment and misogyny that Grossberg was subjected to during her time on both Carlson’s and Bartiromo’s shows, which is probably going to shock absolutely no one.