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A former hairstylist for Fox Sports has filed a lawsuit against the company, including a current executive and former host Skip Bayless, detailing serious allegations of sexual harassment.
The lawsuit, filed on January 3 and first reported by Front Office Sports, seeks class-action status. The ex-employee, Noushin Faraji, claims that one executive took advantage of “his position to sexually harass women.”
Skip Bayless, sports commentator and host of ‘Skip and Shannon: Undisputed’ on Fox Sports 1 (FS1) from September 2016 to August 2024, is named as a defendant in the suit. The sports commentator is accused of touching the hairstylist inappropriately and offering her $1.5million in exchange for sex.
Other defendants named in the lawsuit are FS1 Head of Content Charlie Dixon, FS1 Host Joy Taylor, Fox, Fox Sports, FS1, and FS2. Bayless and Dixon are accused of sexual battery and sexual harassment, while Fox is accused of harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, and other claims.
Faraji claims the company failed to act on her reports, accusing Fox Sports of retaliation and criticizing a “toxic culture” at the network.
Why is Fox Sports being sued over reported workplace misconduct?
The suit includes several allegations of sexual harassment. Faraji accused Dixon of grabbing her buttocks at a party in West Hollywood and claims that she was told to “get over it” by Fox Host Joy Taylor when she told her about the alleged incident.
Much of the lawsuit focuses on the workplace conduct of Skip Bayless on the Undisputed morning show.
The suit accuses Bayless of forcing “lingering hugs and kisses on the cheek” on Faraji while “putting his body against hers and pressing against her breasts.”
The hairstylist claims she repeatedly attempted to rebuff Bayless but was instead the victim of increasingly aggressive sexual harassment.
According to the filing, the former FS1 host offered Faraji $1.5million to have sex with him, boasting it could “change” her life, and accused her of sleeping with his co-host Shannon Sharpe.
Bayless further faces allegations of racial misconduct in the lawsuit: “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?’”
Faraji, who is Iranian, also accuses Taylor of insulting her on “a personal and professional level” and mocking the “English” pronunciation of her surname.
“Ms. Faraji brings forth this action because for over a decade at Fox, she was forced to endure a misogynistic, racist, and ableist workplace where executives and talent were allowed to physically and verbally abuse workers with impunity,” the lawsuit reads.
Hairstylist says complaints to HR and employee relations went unaddressed
Faraji alleges she made multiple complaints to the network’s HR and employee relations departments.
“When Ms. Faraji and others came forward to report the wrongdoing, instead of addressing their concerns, Fox retaliated against them while the perpetrators and those who protected them were inexplicably promoted,” the suit claims, arguing it represents “yet another in a long line of cases chronicling the toxic culture at Fox, marked by bad faith promises and repeated failures to address a poisonous and entrenched patriarchy.”
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Fox Sports has released a statement to Front Office Sports, stating: “We take these allegations seriously and have no further comment at this time given this pending litigation.”
Also speaking to Front Office Sports, one sports law attorney said: “Her lengthy tenure at Fox Sports and not-so-thinly-veiled references to multiple anonymous witnesses suggests that she may have the receipts to back up her version of the events… Just as importantly, she contemporaneously raised these issues with co-workers, which, in the jurors’ eyes, could boost the credibility of these claims.”
The suit clears other FS1 hosts of wrongdoing against Faraji, including Colin Cowherd, host of The Herd. “Throughout her entire tenure at Fox, Mr. Cowherd was professional and respectful to Ms. Faraji and her coworkers,” the suit said.
Faraji is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial. However, if the case does reach class-action status, it could have further implications, including any alleged incidents brought forward by people employed by Fox over the past four years.
