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When Kimberly Guilfoyle — one of the most familiar faces of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign — left Fox News in 2018, before her contract expired, she presented the departure as her decision. Quickly, though, reports surfaced that Guilfoyle had been pushed out over habitually inappropriate behavior at work. Little information has emerged on the specifics of Guilfoyle’s purported misconduct, but now, the New Yorker has surfaced details of a forty-two-page draft complaint from Guilfoyle’s former assistant. The allegations run the gamut from nudity to chronic oversharing about her sex life, and if true, mirror the behavior of some of her male Fox News colleagues.
Guilfoyle adamantly denies ever doing anything untoward. “In my 30-year career working for the SF District Attorney’s Office, the LA District Attorney’s Office, in media and in politics, I have never engaged in any workplace misconduct of any kind,” she told the New Yorker. “During my career, I have served as a mentor to countless women, with many of whom I remain exceptionally close to this day.”
Yet Guilfoyle’s exit from Fox News (and segue to campaigning with her boyfriend, Donald Trump Jr.) came amid rumors of sexual harassment. According to Huff Post, which reported on her possible ouster at the time, Guilfoyle had a habit of showing her colleagues photos of male genitalia and loudly detailing “sexual matters” on the job. She denied Huff Post’s claims through her attorney, who called them “utterly baseless” fabrications by “disgruntled and self-interested employees.”
But the draft complaint, which never went to court and reportedly culminated in a large settlement, would seem to tell a different story. The New Yorker contends that the assistant in question, who remains anonymous, started working for Guilfoyle and another former host, Eric Bolling, in 2015. She had just graduated college, and — according to the magazine — wound up with a boss who subjected her to the following:
Among other things, [the assistant] said that she was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations. The draft complaint also alleged that Guilfoyle spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life, and on one occasion demanded a massage of her bare thighs; other times, she said, Guilfoyle told her to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, encouraged her to sleep with wealthy and powerful men, asked her to critique her naked body, demanded that she share a room with her on business trips, required her to sleep over at her apartment, and exposed herself to her, making her feel deeply uncomfortable.
What’s more, the New Yorker contends that Guilfoyle attempted to buy the assistant’s silence, and when that didn’t work, to secure it through intimidation. In 2016, an external legal team began reviewing company culture after predatory Fox News CEO Roger Ailes resigned in disgrace, prompting Guilfoyle to (allegedly) offer the assistant a pay-off if she lied to the investigators. And when the attorneys turned their attention to Bolling in 2017, Guilfoyle reportedly called the young woman to dangle another financial reward for her “loyalty,” and threatened to harm her career if she spoke out.
While a number of Guilfoyle’s longtime acquaintances vouched for her character, the New Yorker says it was able to confirm some of the assistant’s allegations. Apparently, there was at least one other witness to the naked apartment activity, who described it as “provocative in a way that made you want to get away from this person.” Current and former Fox News employees reportedly corroborated both the photo-sharing and the gratuitous sex talk. Two other employees, who knew both Guilfoyle and the assistant, alternately described the claim as “justifiable” and the pair’s professional relationship as “insane, abusive.”
Read the full report on the New Yorker.
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