A scorching new biography of Roger Ailes contains some startling claims about the Fox News CEO, ncluding an allegation that he offered an employee a raise if she would have sex with him.
The New York Times got an early look at "The Loudest Voice In The Room," the forthcoming book by media reporter Gabriel Sherman.
According to Bill Carter and Julie Bosman, "The Loudest Voice In The Room" paints Ailes as a man with a volcanic temper, and a history of ugly run-ins with his staffers. The most explosive allegation comes from the 1980s:
"Former employees cited in the book talked of Mr. Ailes’s volatile temper and domineering behavior. In one anecdote, a television producer, Randi Harrison, told Mr. Sherman that while negotiating her salary with Mr. Ailes at NBC in the 1980s, he offered her an additional $100 each week “if you agree to have sex with me whenever I want.”
Sherman also claims, according to the Times, that Ailes -- who for some time was a Republican media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and for Rudy Giuliani’s first mayoral campaign in 1989 -- hoped to use Fox News for his political agenda during the 2012 presidential campaign, telling fellow executives: “I want to elect the next president.”
Another passage that is likely to cause some tension over at Fox News, Ailes is quoted as privately deriding Bill O’Reilly as “a book salesman with a TV show,” and mocking Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade as “a soccer coach from Long Island.”
A Fox News spokeswoman said in a statement on Tuesday: “These charges are false. While we have not read the book, the only reality here is that Gabe was not provided any direct access to Roger Ailes and the book was never fact-checked with Fox News.”
