Rupert Murdoch is ‘liar or delusional’ about sexual harassment, says ex-Fox News Analyst

Political commentator Tamara Holder said News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch was either “a liar or delusional” for dismissing concerns of a culture at Fox News that has allowed for rampant sexual harassment.

Holder, who is a former contributor and guest host on Fox News Channel, had received a settlement after speaking out about her own encounter with sexual assault at the network. In an interview on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” on Sunday, she responded to Murdoch’s comments in which he brushed off the impact that multiple harassment claims have had on Fox News and dismissed it as “all nonsense.”

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Holder said that although speaking on the show might otherwise violate her settlement agreement, she felt compelled to respond to Murdoch’s comments and insisted that Murdoch was doing his female employees a disservice by ignoring the cultural problem at Fox News.

“Fox allowed abusive predators to prey on women who just wanted to work,” she said. “That is not nonsense… Let me be clear, I had a man pull out his penis in his office and shove my head on it. That was not flirting; that was criminal. That was not sexual harassment, there were no gray areas or whatever Matt Damon recently said. This is criminal, and I’m not the only case. There are women that can’t speak out.”

Holder — whose charges led to the resignation of Francisco Cortes, Vice President of Fox News Latino — said investors need to recognize the financial and emotional impact that Murdoch has allowed to cultivate at the network.

“Either Mr. Murdoch is a liar or he’s delusional and old and needs to get out,” Holder said. “So if you’re an investor you need to decide if you want your money with a man who has continued to lie to you for the last 20 years. Your money, hundreds of millions of dollars of your money, has gone to settling cases with women over and over and over again. And we’ve been told we had to shut up, and that’s what we’ve done.

“I’m stuck here talking about this because there are people like Rupert Murdoch who continue to deny that we were abused, and our careers were destroyed and our lives were destroyed. This is not political, this is people’s lives.”

Holder also noted that women who were harassed at Fox News have since been unable to find new employment, which only adds to their struggle and can send a message to other victims that speaking out can lead to further negative consequences.

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“I can’t even apply for a job because he allowed me to be abused in his workplace? And didn’t protect me?” she said. “I can’t work anywhere now, there’s something wrong with me? It’s just pain on top of pain on top of pain, and for him to say something like that is so dismissive. We just want to work.”

After Rupert Murdoch dismisses Fox scandals as “all nonsense,” former Fox News contributor @tamaraholder says the network “ruined people’s lives,” and “allowed abusive predators to prey on women who just wanted to work” – Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) December 17, 2017