Final week, Julie Stewart-Binks sat in an empty lounge on the rooftop of a lodge close to her condominium in New York Metropolis. She is about to look at a clip from her time as a Fox Sports activities host and reporter. It’s a second that she thinks about usually, however one which she has by no means needed to relive in full. She hits play on the video, then her fingers jerk again towards her chest, as if bracing for a blow.
Within the clip, Stewart-Binks, then a 28-year-old Fox Sports activities 1 on-air persona, is on the set of a pop-up present – “Jason Whitlock’s Home Occasion By the Bay” – for the 2016 Tremendous Bowl in San Francisco. The set is supposed to evoke a Tremendous Bowl get together. Pink Solo cups. Beers chilling in an ice bucket on the espresso desk. Whitlock and the day’s visitor – New England Patriots tight finish Rob Gronkowski – are behind a desk; Stewart-Binks is on a grey sofa flanking them.
The group is discussing Gronkowski’s disclosure that he moonlighted as a stripper in faculty. Stewart-Binks then says: “When you’ve got an opportunity to make some extra money, utilizing perhaps me for instance, do you need to present us a bit of ‘Magic Mike?’” (A reference to the 2012 film about male unique dancers.) Gronkowski, a bit of stunned, asks Stewart-Binks if she needs a lap dance, to which she replies: “Yeah.” Gronkowski appears to be stalling. He asks about music and remarks: “The place are your pals? I would want, like, a bachelorette get together?” Stewart-Binks retains urging him on, as does Whitlock, and Gronkowski ultimately strikes from behind the desk, over to the sofa. He dances briefly in entrance of Stewart-Binks, then straddles her and thrusts his hips towards her, grinding on her because the cameras roll. Stewart-Binks, laughing, takes out some crumpled greenback payments and fingers them to Gronkowski. The dancing lasts about six seconds.
As she watches the clip, Stewart-Binks’ face reddens and her chest breaks out in hives. She begins to cry. “I’ll spend my whole life making an attempt to make up for this,” she says, wiping away tears with a shaking hand. “I’ll die making an attempt to make up for this second that’s clearly not who I’m.”
The Gronkowski phase was the defining second in Stewart-Binks’ 4 years at FS1 (2013-16). Because the clip unfold throughout the web, FS1 was derided as a “circus act,” however Stewart-Binks took the brunt of the criticism. She was accused of setting again the efforts of girls working in sports activities journalism and betraying feminism totally. A number of the criticism got here from mates and colleagues.
Now, she needs these critics to know why she participated within the phase, and offering that context requires sharing what she says occurred to her within the days beforehand.
On Friday, Stewart-Binks, 37, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket towards Fox and Charlie Dixon, an government vice chairman and head of content material at Fox Sports activities and FS1, the corporate’s sports activities community. In that lawsuit, she alleges that a couple of week earlier than the Gronkowski phase she was sexually assaulted by Dixon throughout a gathering at a lodge that he organized beneath the auspices of speaking about her Tremendous Bowl week duties. Dixon can also be a defendant in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by former FS1 hairstylist Noushin Faraji. In Faraji’s grievance, she claimed that “executives and expertise have been allowed to bodily and verbally abuse staff with impunity,” and he or she alleged that Dixon groped her at a co-worker’s birthday celebration in January 2017, amongst different allegations.
Dixon didn’t reply to textual content, voice and electronic mail messages in search of remark. Fox Sports activities mentioned in an announcement: “These allegations are from over eight years in the past. On the time, we promptly employed a third-party agency to analyze and addressed the matter primarily based on their findings.”
Days after the alleged assault, when producers in San Francisco advised her that FS1 needed a viral second out of Gronkowski, she mentioned she by no means thought-about the implications of the stunt, solely what would occur if she refused with Dixon watching from the set. “I used to be in a very f—ed-up place that I couldn’t inform folks about,” she mentioned.
In her grievance, Stewart-Binks mentioned she detailed the allegations towards Dixon to a Fox human sources official in 2017 however that Fox “egregiously made the deliberate resolution to guard Dixon and permit a sexual predator to stay an government at Fox for practically a decade.”
“They knew and didn’t do something about it,” Stewart-Binks mentioned in an interview earlier this month. “It meant they didn’t care concerning the harm completed to me and the way it affected others.” She then added: “This has been accepted for therefore lengthy. I’m sitting right here wanting it to be completely different.”
Fox Sports activities government vice chairman Charlie Dixon in 2018. (Travis P. Ball / Getty Pictures)
Stewart-Binks grew up in Toronto, and her mom was a broadcast reporter and her father labored within the medical system trade. She performed proper wing on a boys’ home league hockey group and likewise skilled as a determine skater and a cellist.
She attended Queen’s College and obtained levels in each drama and bodily and well being training however developed a ardour for broadcasting and later obtained a grasp’s diploma in worldwide broadcast journalism from what’s now generally known as Metropolis St George’s, College of London.
Her entry into sports activities journalism in Canada was scrappy and unglamorous. She coated Ontario Hockey League video games on a volunteer foundation, staying at a pal’s home in Kingston, then taking a bus to Niagara, the place she’d bunk along with her grandmother in a retirement neighborhood. Later, as a reporter and anchor for CTV in Regina, Saskatchewan, she drove throughout the Canadian prairies capturing and enhancing sports activities tv packages on curling and anchoring the nightly newscasts. To save cash, she lived out of a pal’s basement.
In 2013, she was plucked out of relative obscurity by an agent at Octagon (the late John Ferriter) and flown to Los Angeles to satisfy with Fox Sports activities executives and display screen take a look at for the launch of FS1. She was employed by the fledgling community as an replace anchor and went on to host “Fox Soccer Every day.” She additionally labored as a sideline reporter for Main League Soccer, hosted FS1’s protection of the 2014 Winter Olympics and coated the 2015 FIFA Ladies’s World Cup. She spent 65 days on the street that summer season and was tabbed as certainly one of Terrible Saying’s “Rising Stars.”
However, in response to her grievance, by early 2016, her allies inside FS1 — executives like Scott Ackerson and Rick Jaffe — had departed and a brand new regime — Dixon and fellow government Jamie Horowitz — have been in place with a brand new imaginative and prescient for the community.
Stewart-Binks nonetheless preferred her job. She obtained to cowl soccer and hockey – sports activities she beloved – and work as an anchor and a bunch. She was a part of a tight-knit group that helped launch FS1. However her future was unsure. The community had till April 1, 2016, to choose up a one-year choice in her contract. If it didn’t, she would lose a high-profile job. She felt she wanted to indicate the Dixon-Horowitz regime that she was a flexible and dynamic expertise.
When Whitlock requested her to be part of his present in the course of the 2016 Tremendous Bowl week, she felt she had a gap to do this. After which Dixon requested her to return to his lodge, writing that he needed to “go over expectation(s)” earlier than a bunch assembly the following day, in response to her grievance. After receiving that textual content, Stewart-Binks shared her pleasure with a pal about getting face time along with her boss and curated her outfit for the assembly – a suede jacket and designer heels – hoping to convey fashion and professionalism.
The lawsuit units out intimately how they met on the bar at a lodge in Marina del Rey, Calif. She ordered a single glass of white wine. Dixon requested what she had been advised about her position on Whitlock’s present throughout Tremendous Bowl week. He then advised her he didn’t assume she must be going to the Tremendous Bowl in any respect and that she was ill-suited to host and wasn’t humorous or attention-grabbing or proficient sufficient to attract in viewers.
In an interview, Stewart-Binks mentioned she was shocked and confused by Dixon’s remarks. Why was he denigrating her so strongly, and, simply earlier than she went on an necessary task for the community? She tried to remain calm, even when he remarked, in response to the grievance, that the one approach anybody can be keen to look at her was if she “obtained up on this bar and took your prime off” after which added: “You’re not sizzling sufficient to be a sizzling lady on TV.” She mentioned in her interview with The Athletic that she responded to Dixon: “I didn’t get my grasp’s diploma in ‘sizzling lady.’”
Stewart-Binks mentioned Dixon’s tone then modified. He stopped criticizing her and requested about her skilled aspirations. The grievance states that Dixon then ordered two beers from the bar and urged her to return to his room and drink them, including that he had an ideal view from his balcony. She didn’t assume it was a good suggestion, she mentioned in her interview and within the grievance, however she felt she couldn’t say no to her boss.
“You will have autonomy over your self to say ‘no’ and depart. However you don’t, and also you say ‘sure’ as a result of he held the facility to all the pieces,” Stewart-Binks advised The Athletic.
The authorized grievance describes Dixon’s shirts – colourful tees with slogans and photos – laid out on one of many beds in his room. Dixon instructed they step out on the balcony. As soon as outdoors, Dixon, in response to the grievance, “swiftly pushed her towards the wall of the lodge and pinned her arms to her aspect. Together with her arms forcefully held down and his physique pressed towards hers, Dixon tried to drive his tongue into her mouth.” Stewart-Binks’ mouth remained shut however Dixon “ignored her, persevering with to press towards her physique and lick her closed mouth. Whereas preserving certainly one of her arms pinned, he moved his different arm from urgent her higher elbow towards the wall to her physique and in direction of her chest. Stewart-Binks seized the second of partial freedom to push him away, say ‘get off of me’ and quickly depart the lodge room.”
As soon as in her automobile, she referred to as the identical pal with whom she had earlier shared her pleasure about assembly with Dixon. “I bear in mind getting a really upset telephone name,” the pal advised The Athletic. “It was the general disappointment of ‘I can’t consider an government did this.’” Stewart-Binks later referred to as her mom, in response to the grievance, and the 2 ladies concluded that it will imperil her profession if she spoke out about what Dixon had allegedly completed.
Stewart-Binks went again to work frightened concerning the implications of heading off Dixon and likewise what his remarks about her lack of expertise meant for her profession going ahead. At a gathering the day after the alleged assault, she mentioned Dixon ignored her. She believed her future was “very a lot hanging within the stability” as she arrived in San Francisco for Tremendous Bowl week. Her nervousness was ramped up by producers there who have been hell-bent to “make a second” that will garner consideration, she mentioned.
“I used to be advised … that I used to be not able to with the ability to do a second like this on tv. And that I used to be not attention-grabbing, humorous, proficient, good. And so I felt the necessity to show that I used to be all in, and that I used to be not scared to do one thing like (the Gronkowski stunt). Had I not (completed it), I’d have felt like I failed and that I’d have confirmed what (Dixon) advised me.”
The response to her position within the Gronkowski phase stunned and stung her, she mentioned in an interview. Individuals she knew within the trade, some whom she thought-about mates, have been amongst these voicing their disappointment along with her option to take part. Her co-worker and pal, Katie Nolan, advised GQ that she disapproved of the bit. (Nolan later apologized to Stewart-Binks in a podcast and clarified her remarks.) Stewart-Binks recalled receiving a textual content message from Grant Wahl, the late Sports activities Illustrated soccer author she admired, that learn: “That’s not who you’re.”
Fox promoted the Gronkowski phase on social media and elsewhere. The community obtained its viral second. However when the backlash grew robust sufficient, Fox stopped, and the identical males within the manufacturing assembly wanting to “make a second” went largely silent. Stewart-Binks’ bosses didn’t deal with the incident at size till six weeks later; Horowitz mentioned at the moment that he was supportive of Stewart-Binks for doing a “enjoyable bit” and thought Gronkowski “perhaps … took it a half step too far.”
In her lawsuit, Stewart-Binks mentioned the community instructed her to not touch upon the incident, and her company, CAA, suggested her to trip it out. Lower than two months after the Tremendous Bowl, Stewart-Binks was knowledgeable that Fox wouldn’t decide up her contract choice with one government telling her that there was “nothing for her to do right here,” in response to the grievance.
In keeping with the grievance, Stewart-Binks was contacted by a Fox human sources official in June 2017 and requested about Horowitz’s conduct when Stewart-Binks labored at Fox Sports activities. Stewart-Binks didn’t have something substantive to share about Horowitz, however the grievance states that she disclosed to the HR official what Dixon allegedly mentioned to her of their January 2016 assembly and what allegedly occurred in his lodge room afterward.
Horowitz was fired following the probe, however Dixon remained on the firm.
After Fox, Stewart-Binks labored as a part-time soccer reporter for ESPN, a rinkside reporter for NHL on TNT, a bunch for BetRivers Sportsbook Community, did stand-up comedy, was a bunch for the CBC’s 2024 Olympic protection, amongst different jobs. She’s continued to scrap to seek out work however believes the Gronkowski phase has impacted her capacity to get different jobs.
When the Faraji lawsuit towards Fox and Dixon was filed, Stewart-Binks obtained textual content messages from folks she had advised about her interactions with Dixon. On web page eight of the 42-page grievance, there’s a reference to a bunch who reported Dixon to the corporate. She believed that Faraji, with whom she labored at FS1, was referencing her. Studying about what Faraji allegedly endured was a “tipping level,” Stewart-Binks mentioned. “I didn’t need to maintain onto it anymore.”
Stewart-Binks mentioned she has skilled bouts of self-doubt since leaving Fox Sports activities, Dixon’s criticism of her skills nonetheless ringing in her ears. “I had a unique view of what my life can be like than what it’s. And I’m very grateful for all the pieces I’ve. However typically I feel … nicely, what might my life have been had this not occurred?”
(Prime photograph: Hatnim Lee for The Athletic)