On Wednesday, Fox News said that Ed Henry, one of its top news anchors, had been fired after the network received a sexual harassment complaint from years ago.
Fox News President Jay Wallace and CEO Suzanne Scott wrote in an email to employees, “On Thursday, June 25, we received a complaint about Ed Henry from a former employee’s attorney involving willful sexual misconduct in the workplace years ago.”
They said that Henry was “suspended the same day and removed from his on-air responsibilities” while a third-party law firm investigated the matter. “Based on investigative findings, Ed has been terminated,” the CEO and president said.
Wallace and Scott said, “Fox News Media strictly prohibits all forms of sexual harassment, misconduct, and discrimination. We will continue striving to maintain a safe and inclusive workplace for all employees.”
Henry did not respond to requests for comment, but his attorney Catherine Foti said he intends to clear all his allegations.
Foti said, “Ed Henry denies the allegations referenced in the Fox announcement and is confident that he will be vindicated after a full hearing in an appropriate forum.”
Douglas Wigdor, one of the high-profile attorneys, is representing Henry’s accuser, stating he was not “presently at liberty to share further information.”
Henry, who joined Fox in 2011 after seven years at CNN, served as co-anchor of the network’s morning show “America’s Newsroom. He covered the Obama administration as Fox’s chief White House correspondent.
In 2016, Henry was sidelined following a tabloid magazine’s report about an extramarital affair. At the time, the network’s CEO Roger Ailes publicly rebuked him, stating, “This raises serious questions about Ed’s lack of judgment, especially given his position as a journalist.”
However, he eventually worked his way back into Fox’s good graces. He filled in opinion shows such as “Fox & Friends Weekend” and “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” winning the affections of Fox viewers. In recent years, Fox News has worked to reform its culture after facing high-profile allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Since then, Wallace and Scott have emphasized that the corporate culture had been cleaned up.
