President Donald Trump’s leading campaign lady, his campaign finance chair Kimberly Guilfoyle, is facing accusations of repeated sexual harassment that led to her 2018 departure from Fox News. After obtaining a 42-page complaint drafted by Guilfoyle’s former assistant that was never filed in court, The New Yorker reports an alleged history of sexual harassment — from oversharing details of her sex life, to demanding her assistant massage her bare thighs, among other complaints.
After abruptly parting ways with Fox in 2018, Guilfoyle maintained that it was her decision to leave. However, the report details that her departure came as Fox News was opening an investigation into allegations against Guilfoyle as part of a larger internal probe into sexual misconduct at the company. Guilfoyle allegedly threatened her assistant with retaliation if she spoke out to confirm the abuse, and the company ended up paying her assistant upward of $4 million to avoid taking the case to trial.
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Still, Guilfoyle denied the accusations even then, telling HuffPost through her lawyer that the claims were “utterly baseless” and brought forth by “disgruntled and self-interested employees.”
But the complaint paints a more sinister picture. The assistant said she was often required to work from Guilfoyle’s apartment where Guilfoyle would sometimes be naked and asked her assistant to critique her body. The former Fox host also reportedly showed her then-assistant photographs of the genitalia of men she was sleeping with, and encouraged her to provide “sexual favors” to a Fox employee.
As early investigations into Guilfoyle’s sexual misconduct were underway, the Fox host reportedly offered her assistant hush money and other incentives to keep quiet, including some percentage of Guilfoyle’s speaking fees, a source confirmed to The New Yorker. Guilfoyle denied the allegations, stating she has “never engaged in any workplace misconduct of any kind,” and adding that throughout her career she has “served as a mentor to countless women, with many of whom I remain exceptionally close to this day.”
The claims made against Guilfoyle also portray a larger culture of sexual misconduct reported within Fox News around the time, as former CEO Roger Ailes and former anchor Bill O’Reilly were both ousted in 2016 and 2017 respectively for sexual assault and harassment.
And so far, at least one witness came forward to vouch for the assistant, describing Guilfoyle’s behavior in her home as “provocative in a way that made you want to get away from this person.” Two other Fox employees further corroborated the allegations, calling Guilfoyle’s professional relationship to her assistant as “insane, abusive.”
Despite these claims, Guilfoyle has unfortunately found herself a comfortable home within the Trump team. The president’s 2016 campaign was rife with credible accusations of sexual assault and rape as more than 26 women came forward to accuse the him of sexual abuses.