On Friday, the Huffington Post reported FOX News host Eric Bolling sent photos of his genitalia to multiple female co-workers. FOX News suspended Bolling on Saturday and has launched a full investigation into the matter. One of the accusers is a left-wing anti-Trump professor named Caroline Heldman.
Big League Politics reports:
Suspended Fox News host Eric Bolling’s first public accuser is a major left-wing activist who held a protest sign at President Trump’s inauguration accusing the president of being a rapist.Caroline Heldman, an Occidental College professor who appeared on Fox News, reportedly “filed a sexual harassment complaint just hours before Fox News announced O’Reilly’s departure,” according to People magazine.Now, she is back to accuse Eric Bolling, a major Trump supporter at the network. Here is Philly.com’s report:Hours after Fox News announced it was suspending Bolling, Caroline Heldman, a politics professor at Occidental College and frequent guest on the network from 2008 to 2011, claimed the Fox News host made an unspecified number of unsolicited sexual advances to her.“[Bolling] said he wanted to fly me out to New York for in-studio hits and to have ‘fun.’ He asked me to have meals with him on several occasions, but I found excuses not to go,” Heldman wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “Once, he took me up to his office in New York, showed me his baseball jerseys, and in the brief time I was there, let me know that his office was his favorite place to have sex.”Bolling’s team is denying the accusations. Heldman’s social media profiles show her to be a staunch left-wing feminist activist.
Many brought up #pizzagate in response to my "good people don't vote for rapists" sign at Trump's inauguration. https://t.co/lTDtBEhhgh pic.twitter.com/T2S8UfIF5O— Caroline Heldman (@carolineheldman) June 22, 2017
Below is a statement Caroline Heldman posted to Facebook about Bolling:
** Long Post, TW for Sexual Harassment**Fox News just suspended Eric Bolling pending allegations that he sent photos of his genitalia to female colleagues. My only surprise is that it took this long for people to come forward about Bolling’s behavior, which has been wildly inappropriate for years.I did hundreds of appearances on Fox and Fox Business from 2008 – 2011, and had multiple experiences with Bolling that caused grave concern to my friends and family. Bolling referred to me as “Dr. McHottie” on air on four different occasions, and called me “smart, beautiful, and wrong” on air twice. I pushed back with “Mr. McSexist,” but I shouldn’t have had to. This on-air behavior was perfectly acceptable to Fox executives at the time.Bolling would also contact me via phone and text after shows, sometimes to apologize for his behavior (and then do it again), and sometimes just to talk. He said he wanted to fly me out to New York for in-studio hits and to have “fun.” He asked me to have meals with him on several occasions, but I found excuses not to go. Once, he took me up to his office in New York, showed me his baseball jerseys, and in the brief time I was there, let me know that his office was his favorite place to have sex. I know other women have had similar experiences with Bolling, which means that lots of folks at Fox knew about his behavior well before 2017.Bolling was one of three men from whom I experienced sexual harassment and gender discrimination (the others being Bill O’Reilly and Woody Fraser).O’Reilly was creepy in person; told me “when I was in college, professors didn’t look like you”; then called me “hysterical” during a show, edited the interview, and retaliated by never having me on his show again. http://www.msnbc.com/…/3-accusers-on-trump-s-defense-of-o-r…Fraser took me under his wing as a mentor; constantly pressured me for a relationship and sex; took an idea for a show that would become The Five (I emailed Fraser a treatment that is remarkably similar to The Five, right down to some of the hosts, a year before The Five aired); dangled a contributorship and a hosting position for a sexual relationship; then stopped my appearances when I didn’t acquiesce to his advances. http://www.motherjones.com/…/fox-news-sexual-harassment-he…/Fox News guests are also a problem. In 2010, I consoled a make-up artist (who no longer works for Fox) after Gene Simmons sexually harassed her, and this was not his first time doing so. On March 20, 2011, Lenny Dykstra persistently asked me to a party and told me that he gets “sexually aroused when I talk politics.” He also harassed the make-up artist who was curling my hair at the time. Make-up artists at Fox are contract workers, so many are fearful of speaking up because they simply won’t be hired again. If any Fox executives are reading this, please include make-up artists in your assessment of the environment. They see and hear a lot, and are sometimes the target of harassment from hosts and guests.There are a lot of great people working at Fox, many of whom I admire and respect to this day, but there is also a culture of sexual harassment that has not fully been addressed. I have faith that, given recent decisions to fire and suspend perpetrators, the new management will effectively shift this culture.
A Fox spokesperson confirmed Bolling’s suspension Saturday afternoon in a statement:
“Eric Bolling has been suspended pending the results of an investigation, which is currently underway.”
A “dozen sources” allegedly told Huffington Post that Bolling sent photos of male genitalia in text message form to “at least two colleagues”.
Allegedly the women did not solicit the messages and then told colleagues they were “deeply upsetting and offensive”. One of the women who received Bolling’s texts claims she responded telling him to never send her those types of photos again – he did not respond.
The women, who are Bolling’s current and former Fox colleagues, concluded the message was from him because they recognized his number from previous work-related and informal interactions. The messages were sent several years ago, on separate occasions.When asked whether Bolling at any point had sent unsolicited lewd or inappropriate text messages or emails (including an image of a man’s genitalia) to Fox News or Fox Business colleagues, his attorney Michael J. Bowe responded, “Mr. Bolling recalls no such inappropriate communications, does not believe he sent any such communications, and will vigorously pursue his legal remedies for any false and defamatory accusations that are made.”
Bolling’s lawyer commented:
“Mr. Bolling recalls no such inappropriate communications, does not believe he sent any such communications and will vigorously pursue his legal remedies for any false and defamatory accusations that are made.”
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/08/eric-bolling-accuser-anti-trump-professor-also-accused-bill-oreilly/
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