Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former prosecuting in San Francisco and Los Angeles, joined Fox News in 2006, but she really hit the big time when she was chosen to be a co-host on the network’s wildly popular talk show, The Five, in 2011. Serving as the show’s legal analyst, Guilfoyle and company turned the nightly panel discussion into the second-most-watched program in cable news by 2013. Sounds like a dream gig for someone in her shoes, right? Maybe not.
In July 2018, Guilfoyle abruptly left Fox News. The network released a brief, single-sentence statement: “Fox News has parted ways with Kimberly Guilfoyle.” That doesn’t seem very friendly, so what exactly happened to prompt the sudden exit? According to People, the circumstances surrounding her shocking departure are murky
Sexual harassment? A new job? True love? An internal power struggle? Let’s look at some of the potential real reasons Kimberly Guilfoyle left Fox News.
Former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes ran the network for some two decades before resigning amid a flood of sexual harassment allegations. Multiple employees, including network stars Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, claimed they suffered “psychological torture” for years at his hand.
One of those women, Julie Roginsky, was a Fox News contributor who sued the company for sexual harassment in 2017. According to the Daily Mail, she claimed Ailes forced her to kiss him during meetings and to allow him to look down her dress. The lawsuit also alleges Ailes passed her over for a promotion on The Five because she refused his advances. Guilfoyle was a regular co-host of The Five, and according to Roginsky’s complaint, Ailes allegedly said Guilfoyle would “get on her knees for anyone.”
According to Vanity Fair, Roginsky’s suit also “alleged that Guilfoyle pressured her to praise Ailes and impugn Carlson,” and sources claim the network “investigated [Guilfoyle’s] role in pressuring female colleagues to publicly defend” Ailes.
Guilfoyle certainly did her part to stick up for the embattled executive. “This is a man who champions women,” she told TVNewser in July 2016. Following Ailes’ death in May 2017, she tweeted, in part: “Roger was a friend and a mentor … he will be missed.”
At the time of this writing, there’s been no confirmation that Guilfoyle acted inappropriately toward her colleagues, but even being allegedly associated on the wrong side of the #metoo movement may have cut short her journalism career.
In April 2017, Fox News ousted longtime prime-time anchor Bill O’Reilly following sexual harassment allegations, reported Deadline. You’d think that others at the network would take that news and, you know, be cognizant of saying anything sexist in the workplace, much less on the air. But that wasn’t the case.
The same day that news broke about O’Reilly’s ouster, Kimberly Guilfoyle got into in a verbal sparring match with former The Five co-host Bob Beckel. According to Media Matters, she called Beckel a “waah, waah, crybaby” and told him to “call your camp counselor.” He shot back, “Call your dressmaker,” presumably referring to Guilfoyle’s tight outfit. She quipped, “And give him a raise, that’s what I’m saying.” Co-host Greg Gutfeld then jumped into the fray with a sexual innuendo aimed at Guilfoyle: “You are giving America a raise,” he said.
Guilfoyle appears to laugh off that erection joke with an “Oh my God,” but this begs the question: Was she also subjected to the kind of toxic workplace behavior some of her female colleagues had reported? If so, that could be another reason to cut ties with the network.
(Excerpt) Read more in: Nicki Swift