Is this equal opportunity misogyny? Fox Business Network—whose sister network Fox News has been accused of being a festering cesspool of sexual misconduct—has suspended one of its team over just that.
Charles Payne, host of Making Money on Fox Business Network and one of a few African-American hosts there, has been suspended amid sexual harassment claims made against him by former Fox analyst Scottie Nell Hughes, according to HuffPost.
Payne said that he had a “romantic relationship” with a political analyst for about three years, and Hughes concedes that there was some sort of romantic tryst, but he denies having any sexual contact with Payne, and claims that she stayed “in a relationship” with him because she thought that it would benefit her career.
The Grio reports that Hughes says that she was booted from Fox once she broke it off and tried to report him to Fox executives, including Bill Shine, who had his own sexual-misconduct scandal.
She says that after she reported Payne, her appearances on the network were cut until she resigned on May 1. Yet HuffPost reports that Hughes was let go because of constant on-air gaffes such as calling a Molotov cocktail a “Mazel Tov cocktail.”
Hughes, a virulent Donald Trump supporter, was married during the affair, and her husband and children lived in Nashville, Tenn., while she worked at Fox in New York City. Payne was married, too. HuffPost reports that Hughes recently joined the pro-Trump PAC the Committee to Defend the President as a national spokesman.
“We take issues of this nature extremely seriously and have a zero-tolerance policy for any professional misconduct,” a Fox Business Network spokesman said in a statement. “This matter is being thoroughly investigated and we are taking all of the appropriate steps to reach a resolution in a timely manner.”