When Roger Ailes resigned from Fox News last week, he left behind his second floor office, which was plastered with monitors displaying live streams of shows in process. It was from this office that he almost constantly watched what was being filmed, calling down to the control room floor when something wasn’t to his liking.
“The producer would say, ‘Second Floor says you need to change her hair or her blouse, have her hike up her skirt or put on more makeup,’” says a former contributor and guest host at Fox News and Fox Business News who spoke to Forbes under the condition of anonymity. “Roger watched everything… and during the day he would say, ‘Tits up, hair back.’ That was his M.O.”
These “second floor” recommendations reflect one of many examples of the sexually charged culture fostered by Ailes at Fox News and Fox Business News, the two networks he created and ran for the parent company 21st Century Fox.
Following a lawsuit filed against Ailes earlier this month by former anchor Gretchen Carlson alleging sexual harassment and retaliation, FORBES spoke to a number of former Fox employees to get a sense of what went on behind the scenes during the Ailes era.
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