After Kimberly Guilfoyle abruptly left Fox News in 2018, the popular explanation offered for her departure was that she wanted to avoid conflicts of interest posed by her growing romance with Donald Trump Jr.
The former network host also revealed an exciting new career opportunity: The one-time first lady of San Francisco joined efforts to re-elect Donald Trump and began partnering with her new boyfriend at rallies and fundraisers around the country, campaigning for pro-Trump candidates and delivering the president’s MAGA vision for America.
Simmering below that surface, however, were allegations that she was forced to leave the network due to misconduct. Guilfoyle’s lawyers pushed back against reports by HuffPost in 2018 and the New Yorker in 2019, which said that the misconduct included her showing lewd photos of male genitalia to colleagues and regularly discussing sexual matters at work.
An explosive new investigation by the New Yorker supports earlier reporting, which argued that Guilfoyle, 51, didn’t leave Fox News voluntarily. The New Yorker story, by writer Jane Mayer, also offers more lurid details of the allegations made by her former assistant at the network. It furthermore describes efforts by Guilfoyle to cover up the allegations and cites well-informed sources, who say the network paid the former assistant up to $4 million to avoid going to trial.
Mayer wrote that the allegations were contained in a 42-page draft complaint by the former assistant, who was hired out of college to work for Guilfoyle and her Fox News colleague and friend, Eric Bolling, in 2015.
The complaint said that Guilfoyle showed the assistant photographs of male genitalia, belonging to men with whom she had sexual relations, and that she “spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life.”
“The document, which resulted in a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement, raises serious questions about Guilfoyle’s fitness as a character witness for Trump, let alone as a top campaign official,” Mayer wrote.
Guilfoyle, a former San Francisco prosecutor and ex-wife of California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, declined to be interviewed for the story, but issued a statement to the New Yorker, saying: “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. During my career, I have served as a mentor to countless women, with many of whom I remain exceptionally close to this day.” Guilfoyle’s lawyer declined to comment, Mayer wrote.
The Bay Area News Group also reached out to John Singer, an attorney for Guilfoyle, and to a representative for the Trump reelection campaign. But they did not return a phone call and email seeking comment.
The assistant’s allegations in the complaint suggest that Guilfoyle wasn’t always a champion for women. The complaint said that Guilfoyle told the assistant “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.”
Last month, Guilfoyle had a starring role at Trump’s Republican National Convention, delivering a war cry of a speech in which she warned that Democrats would destroy America, claimed “socialists” Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted to “enslave you” and touted Trump’s ability to restore America to a “shining city on a hill.”
Guilfoyle’s speech reportedly left Trump and Trump Jr., very pleased with her performance and show of loyalty, which has won her a position in the president’s inner circle. It also left political observers wondering how the San Francisco native ended up so firmly in Trumpworld.
Guilfoyle left San Francisco for New York soon after Newsom was elected mayor in 2003, to seek fame as a cable news legal analyst. She and Newsom finalized their divorce in 2006, the same year she went to work at Fox News.
Guifoyle became a protégé of then-chairman Roger Ailes, who gave her prominent hosting spots at the network. Because of her association with Ailes, she became “untouchable,” HuffPost reported.
Guilfoyle’s close ties to Ailes contributed to her downfall at Fox, Mayer reported. Under Ailes, Fox News became “a hotbed of sexual harassment and retaliation,” HuffPost’s 2018 report added. Ailes was forced out of the network after former host Gretchen Carlson sued him for sexual harassment in July 2016. Nearly two dozen women at Fox eventually alleged that they had been sexually harassed or intimidated, Mayer reported.
Even as Guilfoyle led a charge to defend Ailes, his departure left her in a vulnerable position at the network, Mayer reported. Fox hired a law firm to investigate “the deep-seated sexually predatory culture at the network.” By 2017, the firm was looking into allegations involving Bolling, who soon left the network. Bolling and Guilfoyle were close and shared the assistant, who accused both hosts of sexual harassment, Mayer reported.
That year, Guilfoyle tried to buy the assistant’s silence, “offering to arrange a payment to her if she agreed to lie to (the law firm) about her experiences,” the complaint alleged, according to Mayer. The assistant said that Guilfoyle, possibly with funds from Bolling, “mentioned sums as large as a million dollars,” along with other “inducements.”
The assistant’s allegations sparked a months-long investigation by Fox News’ human resources department and eventually led to her negotiated departure from the network, Mayer said.
