Skip Bayless, Fox, Others Sued On 14 Counts, Including Sexual Battery

 Skip Bayless, Fox, Others Sued On 14 Counts, Including Sexual Battery

 This suit alleges that Bayless offered the plaintiff $1.5 million to have sex with him, and that an FS1 executive grabbed her butt at a party.

 Former hairstylist for Fox Sports has alleged via lawsuit that one of the executives in the network took the full extent of "his position to sexually harass women," and that among those women is Skip Bayless, who touched her inappropriately and made a sexual proposition to her.

Faraji has made a torrent of allegations in the 42-page lawsuit, which Front Office Sports obtained. Faraji was last working at Fox Sports some time in between 2012 and August 2021, and the documents also show that Fox, Fox Sports, FS1, FS2, Fox Sports EVP Charlie Dixon, Bayless, and FS1 host Joy Taylor were named as defendants in the suit.

In the suit against Dixon, the head of content for FS1, filed Friday in Los Angeles, she accused him of grabbing her buttocks during a birthday party in West Hollywood. When she recounted the incident to Taylor, the host at Fox told her to "get over it," according to the suit.

On behalf of Faraji and any nonexempt employees of Fox who have worked in California during the last four years, the lawsuit asks for class-action status. Money damages are presently sought by Faraji, who also demands a jury trial.

The suit alleges that once he kneeled with Faraji on the Undisputed morning show starring Bayless, the older man started to give the younger woman lingering hugs and kisses on the cheek, all the while positioning his body against hers and thrusting against her breasts. The allegation made by a single mother is that she told Bayless repeatedly that she had no interest in him and did not "date at work." The single mother asserted that she also told Bayless that she was suffering from ovarian cancer after developing issues with her left ovary, in an effort to discourage him from further advances.

Over the years, however, Bayless has turned more aggressive toward his accuser, as stated in the suit. He allegedly induced Faraji for $1.5 million to have sex with him and said he could "change" her life. In the same suit, Faraji also charged that Bayless made a false accusation against Faraji by saying she had an affair with Shannon Sharpe, another host of "Undisputed."

“The lawsuit alleges: 'About a week later, Mr. Bayless made another advance at Ms. Faraji. Ms. Faraji responded: "Skip, stop, you have a wife." Mr. Bayless responded: "Aren't you Muslim? Doesn't your dad have three to four wives?" Ms. Faraji responded that her father was dead, and when Mr. Bayless looked taken aback, she made an excuse to leave.'”

Faraji managed to make multiple complaints, according to the lawsuit, with the Human Resources and Employee Relations departments during her stay at Fox. 

Meanwhile, the lawsuit goes on to say that after their friendship ended, Taylor started "insulting Ms. Faraji on a personal and professional level." Taylor also mocked the way Faraji, a Persian, pronounced the word "English."

"Her lengthy time at Fox Sports and not-so-thinly-veiled references to multiple anonymous witnesses suggest she may have the receipts to back up her version of events," said Daniel Wallach, sports law attorney and co-host of the podcast Conduct Detrimental. "Just as importantly, she contemporaneously raised these issues with co-workers, which, in the jurors' eyes, could boost the credibility of these claims."

"She has brought this action on behalf of herself because for more than ten years at Fox, she was made to endure a workplace that she characterized as misogynistic, racist, and ableist in every sense," the suit claims. "When Ms. Faraji and others came to report wrongdoing, instead of noting their complaints, Fox retaliated against them while all the perpetrators and those who shielded them went on to enjoy inexplicably promotional perks. Thus, this case is but one in the long line chronicling the toxic culture at Fox; based on bad good faith promises to attend to a bifurcated and entrenched patriarchy." 

However, Fox Sports provided the following statement to FOS: "We take these allegations very seriously and have no further comment at this time given this pending litigation." 

The lawyers for Ms. Faraji did not immediately reply to FOS. The action follows a significant yearly transformation of talent at FS1, Fox's national sports pay-cable network. Bayless exited the network this past August after spending eight years in the role of prime talent in the Undisputed morning show, as his former partner on-air, Sharpe, agreed to a buyout settlement after he clashed publicly with Bayless on air in 2023. Following the canceled Undisputed, Dixon worked with FS1 management to retool the weekday studio lineup: the new Breakfast Ball and The Facility were rolled out, while Colin Cowherd's The Herd and Nick Wright's First Things First retained their time slots. The lawsuit clears Cowherd, saying: "Throughout her entire tenure at Fox, Mr. Cowherd was professional and respectful to Ms. Faraji and her coworkers."

However, the suit notes that in case discovery turns up, Mark Silverman, president and chief operating officer of Fox Sports, could also be included, along with Eric Shanks, chief executive officer and executive producer of Fox Sports, in the list of possible defendants.

Makeup artist Rita Ragone filed a suit against ESPN in 2007, stating that host Jay Crawford and panelist Woody Paige subjected her to sexual harassment on the now-cancelled Cold Pizza morning show.

By 2017, however, Jami Cantor, who served as an NFL Network wardrobe stylist for a decade, had filed a hostile work environment suit against the NFL-owned channel, charging a very lengthy list of abusive work conditions and sexual harassment by legends like Warren Sapp, Donovan McNabb, Eric Davis, and others. The ex-players named in the lawsuit all received termination notices from their jobs at NFL Network before settlement with Cantor was achieved.

In 2019 too the sport channel ESPN settled out of court with former on-air personality Adrienne Lawrence over her accusations of being harassed by some male colleagues within the organization. Furthermore, she mentioned that other male colleagues watched porn in plain view and kept "scorecards" of female employees targeted for sex.