Skip Bayless, Fox Sports, sexual battery and others affected by retaliation suit

Skip Bayless and Fox Sports have reunited, though not in the way either party would have expected.

East obvious A complaint filed by the jury on the network division, run by hosts Eric Shanks and Marc Silverman, alleges that Bayless offered a hair stylist at Fox Sports $1.5 million if she would have sex with him. Will make.

The 14-claim lawsuit, filed Jan. 3 in Los Angeles Superior Court, calls Fox Sports a den of debauchery and also alleges that Bayless repeatedly pressured plaintiff Nausheen Faraji “to have sexual relations with him.” tried.

“MS. Farage brings this action because for more than a decade at Fox, she was forced to endure a misogynistic, racist, and ableist workplace where executives and talent were physically and verbally abusive. Abuse of workers was allowed,” the lawsuit states, which claims sexual harassment, retaliation, hostile work environments and fraudulent business practices.

Read the sexual harassment and 13 other claims against Skip Bayless, Fox Sports, Joey Taylor and others here,

In the familiar tone and words of those who have read the previous lawsuits involving sexual harassment and those slapped on Fox entities and executives over the past decade, the potential class action states: “When Ms. Farazi and others committed wrongdoing Instead of addressing the concerns of those who came forward to report, Fox retaliated against them, while needlessly emboldening the perpetrators and those who protected them. This case thus represents another in a long series of cases documenting the toxic culture at Fox, marked by bad faith promises and repeated failures to address toxic and entrenched patriarchy.

Detailing the July 2021 incident, in which Bayless is accused of offering Faraji $1.5 million to sleep with him, the lawsuit then says outrageously: “Approximately a week later, Mr. Bayless charged Ms. Faraji with a And attacked. Ms Faraji replied: ‘Come on, wait, you have a wife.’ Mr Bayless replied: ‘Aren’t you a Muslim? Doesn’t your father have three-four wives?’ Ms Faraji replied that her father had died, and when Mr Bayless looked surprised, she excused herself to leave.

Farazi claims that while she was cutting her hair in 2024, Bayless told her that “he fantasized about having sex with her and asked how much money it would cost her to have sex with him. Bayless reportedly said: “The more you say no the more I want you.”

Bayless has also been accused of accusing Farage of having a sexual relationship with Bayless’ then-co-host and “rival” Shannon Sharp, an allegation that Farage says was completely false. Sharp himself and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson night cap Briefly addressed the action on Podcast Sunday by saying, “It has nothing to do with me.”

After several tense on-air exchanges between Bayless and Sharp, the latter joined ESPN in June 2023. In August 2024, ex-ESPN host Bayless was pink-slipped by FS1 after eight years. Both parties painted that departure in rosy terms, but ratings decline and then cancellation obvious This was said to be a major issue – as Farage wrote in his suit. The lawsuit says that shortly after Bayless’ exit, Farazi was fired from FS1 “by removing him from the schedule entirely, using fabricated business needs as an excuse.”

“We take these allegations seriously and will have no further comment at this time in view of the pending litigation,” a Fox spokesperson told Deadline today. Representatives for Bayless did not respond to a request for comment from Deadline. If they do, this post will be updated.

The fact that current Fox Sports host Joey Taylor and FS1 content VP Charlie Dixon are named as defendants in the lawsuit, as well as Bayless and several Fox Sports corporate entities, shows that Fox will take these allegations seriously.

In her 42-page lawsuit, filed by attorneys Rana Ayazi and Devin Abney, Farazi says Taylor did nothing to help her and actually harassed her after Dixon groped the hair stylist at a 2017 birthday party. Told to “get rid of it”, the on-air star was hosting. In fact, with office intrigue (to put it politely) and an alleged affair between Taylor and Dixon and a power play over women the VP was building up in FS1, Speak According to Faraji, co-host Taylor became “romantically involved” with FS1 colleague Emmanuel Acho in 2020 – a relationship she found herself being repeatedly asked about by FS1 superiors.

Along with Frazee calling out Fox for “labor code violations” and “unfair, illegal and fraudulent business practices” when it comes to payments, the plaintiffs seek class action certification, a variety of unspecified damages, and Taylor Is. Dixon will be fired.

As the filing says:

At this point, Ms Faraji wants justice. She learns that Mr Dixon used his position of power to force women to have sex with him and used this as justification for groping Ms Farazi. She learns that Mr. Dixon did not fire her immediately (after a falling out between Ms. Taylor and Ms. Farazi) merely to appease Mr. Bayless by giving her a plaything. Despite Ms. Faraji being an excellent hairdresser and constantly requested by the talent, she was limited in how much she could please Mr. Bayless, and once Mr. Bayless left, so did her work. Done.

After the lawsuit became public, several of Bayless’s associates and others became involved, including Bayless’ former colleagues take first Partner Stephen A. Smith.

“The Skip Bayless I know has a hard time paying $15, he’s one of the cheapest guys,” the savvy NBA sports commentator and cultural icon said on his podcast Monday. “That’s me. But that doesn’t mean I have any insider knowledge about it, I don’t, I don’t, and I’m not going to get involved in it.”

Smith continued: “I know Skip, and I’m very, very sad that he finds himself in this position, being accused of these allegations. But I can’t avoid Airways being irresponsible and adding truth or innocence, you know, or guilt to something that I don’t know anything about. That’s all I can say, and I don’t think it’s a crime to say it, is exactly what I said with Jay-Z. The person I’ve known for 25 years. I’ve never seen anything like that in that person, nothing even close to that in that person. This is the same thing I would tell you about Skip Bayless.

Jay-Z has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl at an MTV VMA party in 2000, along with accused and currently jailed Sean “Diddy” Combs and an unnamed female “Celebrity B.” The rap superstar, real name Shawn Carter, has vehemently denied the claims and his attorney Alex Spiro has tried several strategies to refute the allegations.

Bad Boy Records founder Combs was arrested on September 16 on charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution. Already behind bars in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center and denied bail, Combs’ trial is scheduled to begin on May 5 next year.