You've probably seen Scottie Nell Hughes on TV. She's a vocal Trump supporter who worked as a paid contributor for CNN during the 2016 campaign. It used to be you could also see her on Fox News and Fox Business quite a lot, too, but more recently those bookings have evaporated for her, and Hughes has a theory why. In a lawsuit filed yesterday, Scottie Nell Hughes alleged that Fox News had blackballed her after she accused Fox News anchor Charles Payne of rape.
The allegations became public earlier this summer, when Payne was suspended after Hughes, who was then unnamed, accused him of what at the time was referred to as "misconduct." Since those accusations, Hughes claims that Fox News refused to put her on the air. Or to put it in her own words, via The New York Times:
Hughes' accusation says that Payne "pressured" his way into her hotel room and forced her to have sex. Over the next two years, she claims that she was pressured into having an ongoing sexual relationship with Payne with the promise of more appearances or even a paid contributor job at the network. Such a job never materialized.
The Fox News provocateur has a few regrets for the way he's treated guests.
Payne acknowledges that he had an extramarital affair with Hughes, but disputes her characterization of it and, through a lawyer, said that he will be fully vindicated. A Fox representative called the suit a "publicity stunt" and said that it is "bogus" and "downright shameful." Granted, those are also words that they probably would have used about some of Roger Ailes' and Bill O'Reilly's accusers, but I suppose we will have to wait and see.
Update: Fox News reached out with a statement that, in part, reiterates what it told the Times: "The latest publicity stunt of a lawsuit filed by Doug Wigdor has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful. We will vigorously defend this."
