‘Gonna Make You My Little Wh*re’: Ed Henry’s Disturbing Alleged Texts to His Accuser Revealed in Lawsuit
Explicit texts allegedly sent by former Fox News anchor Ed Henry to former Fox Business producer Jennifer Eckhart — who accused Henry of rape in a new lawsuit — were revealed this week as part of the legal action.
The lawsuit from Eckhart and journalist Cathy Areu, filed against Ed Henry and other current personalities at the cable news network, included screenshots of the messages Henry allegedly sent to Eckhart. They included, “Fuck you and your safe word… You will know when i am done,” “When u r owned U dont get a ‘Choice’,” “Gona make you my little whore again,” “Owned & submissive… More anal,” and “Good long session last time… Left you bruised batter dazed sated begging for more.”
The messages and accusations were so graphic that the lawsuit contained a “trigger warning” at the top.
According to the lawsuit, “Mr. Henry, approximately twice Ms. Eckhart’s age, preyed upon, manipulated and groomed Ms. Eckhart starting at the young age of 24, by exerting his abuse of power over her and her career.”
“Mr. Henry not only leveraged this imbalance of power for control over his victim, Ms. Eckhart, but asked her to be his ‘sex slave’ and his ‘little whore,’ and threatened punishment and retaliation if Ms. Eckhart did not comply with his sexual demands,” the lawsuit alleged, claiming Henry “sexually assaulted her on office property, and raped her at a hotel where Fox News frequently lodged its visiting employees.”
The lawsuit also claimed that Henry sent Cathy Areu “a slew of wildly inappropriate sexual images and messages.”
Fox News fired Henry on July 1, less than a week after the network received a sexual misconduct complaint against the anchor by Eckhart. In a statement issued Monday, Fox News did not challenge her allegations against Henry: “Fox News already took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart’s claims on June 25 and Mr. Henry is no longer employed by the network.”
Henry’s lawyer issued a statement calling the claims “false” and maintaining the two had a consensual relationship.
In response to Areu’s allegations, Fox News wrote in a statement: “Based on the findings of a comprehensive independent investigation conducted by an outside law firm, including interviews with numerous eyewitnesses, we have determined that all of Cathy Areu’s claims against FOX News, including its management as well as its hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity & Howard Kurtz and its contributor Gianno Caldwell, are false, patently frivolous and utterly devoid of any merit.”
“We take all claims of harassment, misconduct and retaliation seriously, promptly investigating them and taking immediate action as needed — in this case, the appropriate action based on our investigation is to defend vigorously against these baseless allegations,” the network added.
