A Big Noon Kickoff logo is seen on a lift as setup continues for the Fox Sports NCAA football Big Noon Kickoff pregame show, Friday, Oct. 8, 2021, on the east side of the Pentacrest on the University of Iowa campus in Iowa City, Iowa.
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Multiple media outlets reported Sunday that a hairstylist who used to work at Fox Sports is suing a network executive and media personalities Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor, claiming that they all played a role in creating a hostile work environment where sexual harassment was frequent.
Attorneys for Noushin Faraji filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County court on Friday. She says that she worked at Fox Sports from 2012 until August 2024 and, according to the suit, “was forced to endure a misogynistic, racist and ableist workplace where executives and talent were allowed to physically and verbally abuse workers with impunity.”
Fox Sports and its subsidiaries, executive vice president of content of FS1 Charlie Dixon, Bayless and Taylor are listed as defendants in the case.
Dixon allegedly grabbed Faraji’s buttocks during a party, and when Faraji went to Taylor to tell her what had happened, Taylor supposedly told the hairstylist to “get over it.”
On top of that encounter, the lawsuit states that an anonymous employee informed Faraji that she wouldn’t be keeping her job since she didn’t have sex with Dixon in exchange for a new contract. The suit also notes that the anonymous employee said that Dixon “was doing this to other women talent.”
Fox apparently did not thoroughly investigate Dixon’s sexual advances, and the suit filed by Faraji claims that the executive used his position in the workplace to get women to have sexual relations with him.
While working on Bayless’ show, “Undisputed,” Faraji was the target of repeated sexual advances by Bayless, according to the lawsuit. She tried to stop them by telling Bayless that she potentially had cancer, but the behavior continued.
The suit also claims that Bayless offered Faraji $1.5 million to have sex. One week after that proposal, Bayless allegedly made another advance, with Faraji bringing up the fact that he has a wife. Bayless then supposedly said, “Aren’t you Muslim? Doesn’t your dad have three to four wives?”
Bayless also accused Faraji of sleeping with his co-host, Shannon Sharpe, according to the lawsuit.
Taylor apparently was “insulting Ms. Faraji on a personal and professional level” after the two stopped being friends.
Faraji is seeking an unknown amount of monetary damages and a jury trial in the suit.
–Field Level Media
