Six women who crossed paths with Roger Ailes during the Fox News CEO’s rise to the top of conservative media have shared vile tales of the honcho demanding sex in exchange for career success.
The women — two of whom spoke on the record — told US of similar experiences in which Ailes allegedly propositioned them in revolting fashion.
Their accounts emerged days after ex-Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson sued Ailes, 76, alleging he’d sexually harassed her and then opted not to renew her contract after she declined his propositions.
“You know if you want to play with the big boys, you have to lay with the big boys,” one woman, Kellie Boyle, 54, recalled Ailes telling her in his chauffeured car.
Boyle at the time was 29, married and about to sign a contract with the National Republican Congressional Committee.
“He said that’s how all these men in media and politics work — everyone’s got their friend,” she SAID
After she declined Ailes’ advances, a key meeting fell through and she didn’t get the job, according to the article.
She heard from a friend “Word went out you weren’t to be hired.”
Other accounts were even more disgusting.
A former model, using the pseudonym Susan, said she was 16 when she auditioned for a walk-on part on the daytime variety program “The Mike Douglas Show” in 1967, where Ailes started his career in television.
Ailes took Susan into his office and stretched out on a couch.
“He proceeded to pull down his pants and very gingerly pull out his genitals and said, ‘Kiss them,’ And they were red like raw hamburger,” Susan, now 66, told the magazine.
Ailes’ attorney, Barry Asen, noted articles by current and former female Fox News employees vouching for Ailes.
“It has become obvious that Ms. Carlson and her lawyer are desperately attempting to litigate this in the press because they have no legal case to argue. The latest allegations, all 30 to 50 years old, are false,” Asen said.
Two other women separately told the magazine that Ailes asked them to put on garter belts and model them for him.
“If your legs look good in a garter belt, I’ll know you have great legs,” Marsha Callahan, 73, a former model, recalled Ailes telling her around 1968.
She declined Ailes' offer and got the gig anyway.“So I go into his office and right away he says, ‘Sit on the sofa and lift your skirt up.’ I had to do these different poses.”
"I remember passing Roger in the hallway. He pretended not to know who I was," she recalled.
“This defamatory lawsuit is not only offensive, it is wholly without merit and will be defended vigorously,” Ailes said in a statement when the suit was filed.
On Friday, Ailes’ attorneys filed papers seeking to have Carlson’s lawsuit moved to arbitration from New Jersey Superior Court, which would likely make the proceedings secret.
Carlson’s attorneys have said “many women” have contacted them about Ailes since her bombshell lawsuit was filed.
“They will have their own stories to tell should they choose to speak publicly,” said Carlson’s attorneys, Nancy Erika Smith and Martin Hyman
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