BY CHARLOTTE ALTER
MEDIA
AT FIRST, ABBY GROSSBERG THOUGHT FOX NEWS WOULD be her big break. When she got a job as the main producer of Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo in 2019, she was responsible for booking guests, meeting news-makers, and even sitting in on phone calls with President Donald Trump. In 2022, she moved to Tucker Carlson Tonight, where she became head of booking.
But in recent weeks, Grossberg has filed two lawsuits against her former employer. In one suit, filed in Delaware, she alleges that Fox News lawyers bullied her into giving false and misleading testimony in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation case against Fox, which the network settled in April for $787.5 million. According to Grossberg, the lawyers for the company coached her to “shade” her deposition in the Dominion lawsuit and coerced her to implicate herself and Bartiromo rather than Fox News executives. On May 9, Grossberg dropped that lawsuit, although her lawyer has said she intends to refile it in a different jurisdiction. In another lawsuit, filed in New York, Grossberg alleges that she was unfairly denied a promotion at Sunday Morning Futures, and that the work environment at Tucker Carlson Tonight was so hostile to women that it triggered a nervous breakdown. She’s now suing for economic, punitive, and emotional-distress damages.
Grossberg was fired from Fox on March 24. She alleges the company fired her because she disclosed information about the Dominion case in her suit. Fox says the termination was related to her performance. “Fox News engaged an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns raised by Ms. Grossberg, which were made following a critical performance review,” a Fox News spokesperson said in a statement. “We will continue to vigorously defend Fox against her unmeritorious legal claims which are riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.” Carlson’s attorney did not reply to a request for comment.
In an extended interview with TIME, Grossberg offered her perspective about the charges at the core of both of these lawsuits: that Fox’s relentless pursuit of ratings, combined with alleged gender discrimination at the company, created an environment where falsehoods and conspiracy theories thrived unchecked.
On her first day at Tucker Carlson Tonight, Grossberg says, she walked into the office to find it plastered wi
