Fox News Guest Denies Sean Hannity Harassed Her, But Still Claims Incident Occurred
Debbie Schlussel, a conservative commentator, says that she does not believe that an incident in which she claims she turned down Sean Hannity’s advances and later was “banned” from Fox News was a case of sexual harassment.
She told LawNewz on Monday that “I never thought I was sexually harassed by Sean Hannity, I thought he was weird and creepy not someone I liked.”
Over the weekend, after headlines of her story appeared, Hannity vigorously denied them and threatened legal action.
On Friday, Schlussel said in a radio interview that Hannity once invited her to his hotel while he was taping a show in Detroit. She told LawNewz that she was invited to his hotel, not his hotel room. She said that she was later not invited back to appear on Fox News.
On Twitter, Hannity tweeted out Schlussel’s LawNewz interview with the remark, “Already the story changes.”
But Schlussel said that she was merely clarifying the remarks from her Friday radio interview with an Oklahoma radio host.
Hannity said in a statement on Sunday that Schlussel’s claims were “100% false and a complete fabrication.” He added that Schlussel was a “serial harasser” and that “my patience with this individual is over. I have retained a team of some of the finest and toughest lawyers in the country who are now in the process of laying out the legal course of action we will be taking against this individual.”
Schlussel told LawNewz that she is considering her own legal action based on Hannity’s remarks.
Schussel indicated that the incident happened in the early 2000s.
In 2010, after Schlussel accused Hannity in a blog posting of personally benefiting from a charity called Freedom Alliance, the charity pushed back. In a letter to its supporters, it said that the allegations were “false and malicious,” and that they “never provided planes, hotels, cars, limos, or anything else to Sean. Sean gets nothing from Freedom Alliance except our gratitude for his personal generosity and for all he has done to help the troops and our organization.”
Hannity has been a donor to the organization.
“He does not use any Freedom Alliance Funds or Concert funds in any way, period,” the letter stated. It was signed by the charity’s president, Thomas P. Kilgannon and its founder and honorary chairman, Oliver L. North.
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