CNN Anchor Aliysn Camerota: ‘Yes, Roger Ailes Did Sexually Harass Me’

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CNN host and former Fox News reporter Alisyn Camerota on Sunday said that former Fox chairman Roger Ailes sexually harassed her when she worked for the network.

“Yes, Roger Ailes did sexually harass me,” Camerota said in an interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

She said Ailes “was often kind of grossly inappropriate with things that he would say.”

“I think that many of us experienced that,” she said. “He would talk about body parts. He would say ‘Give me a spin.’ He would want to be greeted with a hug.”

Camerota said that when she began working at Fox News, she met with Ailes in his office.

“I was saying that I wanted more opportunity,” she said. “He said ‘Well, I would have to work with you. I would have to work with you on that case. I would have to work with you really closely, and it may require us getting to know each other better, and that might have to happen away from here, and it might have to happen at a hotel. Do you know what I’m saying?'”

Camerota said she replied to Ailes: “Yeah, I think I do know what you’re saying.”

“I knew, in my head at that moment, I’m never going to that hotel under any circumstances,” she said.

After that exchange, Camerota said, Ailes “targeted” her and said she “wasn’t reflecting the conservative agenda.” She called it “emotional harassment.”

“He and I had a lot of interaction, and sometimes arguments. Sometimes he would lecture me. Sometimes he would insult me,” she said. “Towards the end, I started refusing to go to Roger’s office.”

Ailes left Fox News in July 2016 amid a corporate probe into several sexual harassment claims against him. In January, the network’s parent company 21st Century Fox announced it had agreed to pay $20 million to former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson to settle her sexual harassment lawsuit against Ailes.

Camerota said that former Fox host Bill O’Reilly’s ouster last week amid sexual harassment allegations against him was one of the reasons she decided to come forward.

“If I take the Murdochs at their word, they really want to know what was wrong there and what the culture was like,” she said. “I don’t know how you get that from silence, so it feels like this might be the right time to just have this conversation and let some daylight in.”

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