Former Fox host Ed Henry is suing NPR, CNN and three of their journalists – Brian Stelter, Alisyn Camerota and David Folkenflik
Former Fox host Ed Henry is suing NPR, CNN and three of their journalists – Brian Stelter, Alisyn Camerota and David Folkenflik – for how they reported rape allegations against him from one of his former colleagues.
Henry was fired by Fox in July 2020 after the network received a complaint that he had raped Jennifer Eckhart. They didn’t reveal what the complaint was but weeks after his firing, Eckhart sued him, describing how he’d ‘violently raped’ her.
He has always denied her claims, insisting they had a consensual relationship. He says he was fired instead to distract the public from CEO Suzanne Scott ‘covering up’ an alleged affair that the company president, Jay Wallace, was having with an employee.
Fox said in a statement to DailyMail.com that it conducted a ‘full and independent investigation of the claims against Jay Wallace’ and ‘he was cleared of any wrongdoing and the allegations are false.’
On Thursday, Henry sued Scott for defamation for painting him as a ‘sex criminal’ and now he has also sued CNN, NPR and the three journalists for how they reported the story back in July 2020.
He tweeted a link to the lawsuit and promised it wouldn’t be the last.
Folkenflik wrote in an NPR article that Fox had been ‘warned’ that giving Henry roles would damage its attempts to repair its reputation after the sex scandals involving Roger Ailes emerged.
He wrote: ‘In 2017, a written complaint was filed to senior Fox executives warning against giving Henry greater profile on the air, including as a substitute host and anchor, according to a former colleague with knowledge of those events.
Henry promised that the lawsuit – his third since being fired – would not be his last
In his lawsuit, he points to a segment titled ‘Camerota on new lawsuit: I guess Fox News is rotten to the core’ where Stelter was discussing the rape allegation in Eckhart’s lawsuit
NPR reporter David Folkenflik is also named as one of the defendants
‘The complaint said the prospect of Henry’s greater prominence on Fox was crushing for female colleagues after the network had promised sweeping changes following Ailes’ ouster.
‘Among those with whom the complaint was shared: Jay Wallace, Fox’s chief news executive, and Kevin Lord, the chief human relations executive who was brought in with the mandate to help transform the culture.’
Jennifer Eckhart claimed in a lawsuit that Henry ‘violently raped her’
Henry claims that the statement is false and defamatory because it ‘portrayed Mr. Henry in a false light because it implied that Mr. Henry had a history of sexual misconduct at Fox News.’
Fox said it had never received a complaint about any misconduct before he was fired.
He then points to a video of a CNN segment titled ‘Camerota on new lawsuit: I guess Fox News is rotten to the core’ where Stelter was discussing the rape allegation in Eckhart’s lawsuit.
He said: ‘This explains why Henry was fired’ which Henry says is defamatory because he insists he was not fired over the rape allegation, and instead was fired as a ‘scapegoat’ for other sexual misconduct at the network.
Camerota said: ‘And didn’t [Fox News] know this? When that outside law firm Paul Weiss did their investigation back in 2016, didn’t Ed Henry’s name come up? Didn’t they know things about Ed Henry and yet they promoted him? And doesn’t that tell us all we need to know about the culture?’
Henry says she was implying that the allegations were fact.
Eckkhart’s lawsuit includes a string of WhatsApp messages Henry, 49, allegedly sent to Eckhart in which he calls her his ‘little w***e’ and refers to their relationship in graphic terms
‘I’m sad to think that four years after Roger Ailes was gone that the young women there feel like they’re still having to operate in this culture,’ she went on.
Henry says that he was not a part of the culture they were describing.
‘Indeed there were (and are) ongoing problems at Fox News, but those problems lay at the feet of Ms. Scott and Mr. Wallace. Mr. Henry was used as a scapegoat by Ms. Scott and Mr. Wallace, and Defendants Stelter, Camerota, and Folkenflik took the bait, recklessly promoting the myth that Mr. Henry was fired for sexual harassment or assault,’ his attorneys write in his lawsuit.
Neither CNN, NPR or any of the journalists mentioned have yet responded to the lawsuit.
In his suit against Scott, Henry said: ‘Ms. Scott sandbagged [Henry] with her statement, lending credence to the false allegations because she was trying to save her own career and burnish her image as a tough, no nonsense female executive who cleaned up Fox News,’ the lawsuit reads.
Henry alleges that he was used as ‘an instrument’ and ‘scapegoat’ to cover up the existence of sexual misconduct at Fox News and divert attention away from Scott’s ‘own sordid history’ at the network.
In a statement, Fox told DailyMail.com: ‘As we stated one year ago, FOX News Media conducted a thorough independent investigation into Ed Henry immediately after we were made aware of a serious misconduct claim against him by a former employee. Based on the results of those findings, we promptly terminated Mr. Henry’s employment for willful sexual misconduct and stand by the decision entirely.
‘We are fully prepared to vigorously defend against these baseless allegations as Mr. Henry further embarrasses himself in a lawsuit rife with inaccuracies after driving his personal life into the ground with countless extramarital affairs in a desperate attempt for relevance and redemption.’
It added: ‘Under the leadership of CEO Suzanne Scott, FOX News Media has worked tirelessly to transform the company culture, implementing annual, mandatory in-person harassment prevention training, creating an entirely new reporting structure, more than tripling the size of our HR footprint, conducting quarterly company meetings and mentoring events, as well as executing a zero tolerance policy regarding workplace misconduct for which we engage outside independent firms to handle investigations.’
Henry is also suing Fox CEO Suzanne Scott who he claims covered up an affair that the company president was having with another employee