About a month before Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, she talked about what she called a pattern of sexual harassment she experienced while she was still trying to make a name for herself.
In an essay in The Huffington Post, Carlson talked about one incident at WRIC in Richmond, Virginia in the early 90s she said wasn’t creepy, but “scary.”
Carlson said she was harassed by a camera guy after the two were on their way back from shooting a story.
“Before the interview, he helped me attach my microphone, reaching up under my blouse to hook it to my bra,” Carlson wrote. “This was a normal routine, and I didn’t think anything of it. But on the drive back to the station he started talking about how much he’d enjoyed touching my breasts. It wasn’t just creepy; it was scary.”
The news director fired the guy. But Carlson said she still blamed herself.
“Like so many young women who are the victims of harassment, I worried for months that I had invited his advances in some way, or worse, that people would think I had,” said Carlson. “I hadn’t done anything wrong, but still I felt shame.”