Gretchen Carlson Gets $20 Million From Fox, Untold Number Of Silkwood Showers

Gretchen Carlson and Roger Ailes

Oh no, sounds like Fox News better cut down on some of the expensive luxuries in its September budget, because  Vanity Fair reports the network is cutting Gretchen Carlson a $20 million check, settling Carlson's lawsuit alleging that ousted Fox News chief Roger Ailes sex-splooted his grease body all over her, and also that "Fox & Friends" co-host Steve Doocy is a nasty old sexual harasser, also too:

[T]he company has agreed, on behalf of Ailes, to settle Carlson’s suit for a stunning $20 million, according to three people familiar with the settlement. To reinforce their seriousness about creating a new culture in a post-Ailes world, the company is expected to offer Carlson a public apology as part of the settlement. (The company, according to two people familiar with the discussions, has also reached settlement agreements with two other women.)

Though Carlson’s case is against Ailes personally, Fox is essentially his insurer for any settlement, according to two people familiar with the arrangement, and discussions between Ailes’s legal team and 21st Century Fox’s legal team became very tense regarding how much Ailes might pay in a settlement. (At press time, it was unclear how much Ailes was personally on the hook for.)

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/fox-newss-gretchen-carlson-allegedly-fired-for-refusing-to-bang-roger-ailes-on-his-penis"></a>[/wonkbar]Well that is very nice, and $20 million is a nice payday, we guess, for suffering the indignity of being covered with Roger Ailes's slime on a regular basis, as part of your job. However, we'd be remiss if we didn't note that it's exactly HALF what Rupert Murdoch gave Ailes as severance, to make him go away forever so Fox could hopefully move past all this unseemly folderol. (We'd also be remiss if we forgot to point out that Murdoch still retained Ailes as an "adviser.")

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/andrea-tantaross-lawsuit-against-fox-news-is-omg-wtf-insane"></a>[/wonkbar]Carlson's settlement is also less than half of what former co-worker Andrea Tantaros is asking for in her lawsuit, which was filed against Fox News. Wonder if that's one of the other settlements the network has recently reached!

Carlson and 21st Century Fox have both issued statements -- Carlson is appreciative Fox dealt with her complaint, and Fox is very sorry she "was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve." Guess that's that, then.

[wonkbar]<a href="https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/roger-ailes-is-bigger-more-disgusting-sex-perv-than-you-ever-could-have-imagined-allegedly"></a>[/wonkbar]You'll remember Carlson's lawsuit was the "Bad Touch!" heard 'round the world, which led many more Fox women, including Tantaros and Megyn Kelly, to come forward and say, yeah, this is what happens at Fox News, if you are a lady. You get ogled, you get sexually harassed, Ailes offers to bone you in exchange for making your career great again, Bill O'Reilly offers to falafel you at the beach, and so on. And mean journalists like Gabriel Sherman at New York Magazine have been taking this seriously, and writing massive, wonderful, completely disgusting exposés on the topic. 

All of this is obviously making Roger Ailes very sad, and he's probably experiencing many invasions of privacy and pains and sufferings, which must be why he's retained this one libel lawyer you might have heard about in The News lately, to vanquish Sherman for the crime of being a reporter:

On Friday, as the F.T. first reported, Ailes’s newly retained libel lawyer, Charles Harder, sent “demand” letters to both Sherman and New York magazine asking them to retain all documentation related to Sherman’s reporting. (A spokesperson for New York confirmed receipt of the letter.) Harder recently represented Terry Bollea, a.k.a Hulk Hogan, in his successful $140 million lawsuit against Gawker Media. Harder also recently represented Melania Trump.

Sounds like SOMEBODY deserves a gold star and a love-pat on his fanny, for officially making his name with the Gawker lawsuit! Now ALL THE RICHIE RICHES are calling him, whenever they get a #sads in their #feelings, because a mean person said something mean about them, that might or might not be true.

But pffffffft, the truth probably doesn't matter. Can they punch down and bury those mean people in legal fees, so they are no longer allowed to be mean and hurt their fragile feelings? That is the REAL question on their minds, probably, allegedly, who even fucking knows.

[ Vanity Fair ]