Fox News Anchors' Messiest Real-Life Scandals We Can't Forget

When you're an anchor, commentator, or pundit on TV, it's your job to report and cover the news — not to become the news yourself. However, for many of the major players and big stars at Fox News who gain their own fan bases and grab big ratings, it can apparently be difficult to stay out of the spotlight and avoid having some of their biggest mistakes and worst behavior come to light. This seems to be a particularly persistent problem over the course of the past three decades.

Since Fox News first launched in 1996, it has grown and evolved thanks to its bullpen of big personalities who know how to whip their fan base up into a fervor. The network has banked on courting controversy and sharing hot takes to build viewership — but from time to time that has come back to bite the cable powerhouse and cost it some serious cash. The behind-the-scenes drama has been the source of two major Hollywood productions: the Oscar-winning 2019 drama "Bombshell" and the 2019 Showtime drama series "The Loudest Voice."

From sexual harassment allegations against its biggest stars (and even its former chairman), to claims of racism, defamation, and the spread of misinformation, Fox News has weathered many storms and paid out millions in cash settlements. Throughout the years, many of the most popular anchors have been at the forefront of some of the network's messiest scandals.

In April 2023, Fox News made a startling decision when it axed firebrand conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, despite high ratings and a devoted fan base. The termination was made without any overt explanation from the network but came following a flurry of different controversies, including resurfaced audio from past radio appearances in which Carlson shared misogynistic views and the constant criticism of his Fox show for perpetuating racist viewpoints and white supremacist propaganda. However, the final straw seemed to come when Fox News was sued by Dominion Voting Systems for defamation after anchors on the network, including Carlson, made baseless claims about the voting machines following the 2020 election.

During the lawsuit, a number of text messages Carlson had sent came to light in which he expressed concerning racist remarks. The damning texts reportedly may have led to Fox News settling with Dominion to the tune of $787.5 million. Not long after, Tucker found himself out of a job. While some speculated that his termination may have been part of the settlement with Dominion, author Brian Stelter wrote in his book "Network of Lies" that Carlson's firing was a result of his erratic behavior and ego.

"He committed the cardinal Fox sin of acting like he was bigger than the network he was on," Stelter wrote (via Vanity Fair). "He was believed to be irreplaceable. But that impression was, in large part, a creation of Carlson's. In truth, Carlson had alienated so many people, instigated so many internal and external scandals, fanned so many flames of ugliness, that his firing was inevitable."

After Kimberly Guilfoyle's contentious split from Gavin Newsom in 2005, the TV personality wound up becoming a staunch GOP supporter and conservative commentator. She joined Fox News in 2006 as a contributor and was cast as a member of the panel talk show "The Five" in 2011, where she continued to serve as a co-host. She appeared on an a similar show, "Outnumbered," beginning in 2014. In 2017, Guilfoyle signed a lengthy contract extension with the network, which came to an abrupt and premature end in July 2018 when Guilfoyle announced her departure from Fox News.

As it turns out, her exit was not exactly voluntary, but more of a demand made by Fox News following a lengthy investigation into allegations of sexual harassment leveled against Guilfoyle by her former assistant. According to a 2020 report from The New Yorker, Guilfoyle had allegedly made the female staffer look at nude photos of the men Guilfoyle had been sexually involved with, and she'd been encouraged by Guilfoyle to sleep with powerful men at the network to further her career. The assistant also claimed that Guilfoyle had exposed herself to her and asked her to critique her physique. Guilfoyle denied the claims, but it is believed that Fox News quietly paid the former assistant several million dollars to settle the matter out of the public eye.

During his time on Fox News, Bill O'Reilly was one of the biggest stars in the history of the network, despite often letting his temper get the best of him. However, even his popularity and ratings couldn't keep him from getting the boot in April 2017, after news broke that O'Reilly had been accused of sexual harassment by several women and that the network had subsequently paid the women a total of $13 million to settle the cases that had been brought against him. After an expose revealed the allegations and Fox's settlements, his show lost more than half of its advertisers, costing the network even more.

"It is tremendously disheartening that we part ways due to completely unfounded claims. But that is the unfortunate reality many of us in the public eye must live with today," O'Reilly said in a statement at the time (via Fox News Digital). O'Reilly's termination from the network was particularly notable, as it came on the heels of Roger Ailes being forced to leave his role as chairman of Fox News months earlier after numerous hosts accused him of sexual harassment and misconduct. Ailes' controversy was the subject of the 2019 drama "Bombshell." It seems two high-profile sexual harassment scandals in a single year was too much for the network to tolerate.

In April 2017, the same month that Bill O'Reilly was forced out of Fox News, Sean Hannity also became the subject of sexual harassment claims. Right-wing commentator and blogger Debbie Schlussel claimed in an interview with KFAQ radio in Tulsa, Oklahoma (via NBC News), that Hannity had made an inappropriate pass at her a decade earlier. Schlussel alleged that Hannity — who, at the time, was married to his now-ex-wife Jill Rhodes — "tried to get me to go back to the hotel after the show," but she turned the offer down.

Schlussel claimed that Hannity later called her. "[He] yelled at me and said, 'I don't know if I can have you on my show with me,'" she recalled. "Before that happened, he said I would be a regular guest on his show. After I said I wouldn't go to his hotel, I was blacklisted from Fox News. I just made a couple more appearances, and not on his show. That was it." 

Hannity flat-out denied the claims and threatened to sue Schussel, although it does not appear that he ever followed through, and Schussel never sought legal action against him. However, the claims held particular weight due to O'Reilly's termination and stuck with Hannity for years. Hannity, meanwhile, has stayed a Fox News stalwart and continues to host his eponymous nightly primetime series on the network.

Long before Jesse Watters was being roundly mocked on social media for his weird take on Kamala Harris' day out with husband Doug Emhoff (claiming that it is emasculating for husbands to go grocery shopping with their wives), the Fox News personality was the host of the man-on-the-street interview series "Watters' World." The interviews aired as a segment on "The O'Reilly Factor," and it was during one such segment in October 2016 that Watters did a report from New York City's Chinatown. Almost immediately, he delved into and embraced wildly racist Asian stereotypes that included constant references to martial arts and overtly racist caricatures of Chinese culture, all set to the 1974 Carl Douglas song "Kung Fu Fighting."

The pushback against Watters and the segment was swift and fiery. "We should be far beyond tired, racist stereotypes and targeting an ethnic group for humiliation and objectification on the basis of their race," the Asian-American Journalists Association said in a statement at the time. Meanwhile, the former mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio, tweeted, "The vile, racist behavior of Fox's Jesse Watters in Chinatown has no place in our city. @FoxNews – keep this guy off TV."

Fox News, however, did not heed DeBlasio's advice. Instead, Watters gave a half-hearted apology, tweeting, "As a political humorist, the Chinatown segment was intended to be a light piece, as all Watters World segments are." He added, My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found offense." That was enough for Fox; the network kept Watters around, wound up making him a co-host of "The Five," and gave him his own show, "Jesse Watters Primetime," in January 2022.