Julie Stewart-Binks, a former anchor and reporter for FOX Sports on FS1, has filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging that network executive vice president Charlie Dixon sexually assaulted her in 2016. Within the lawsuit, Stewart-Binks alleged that Dixon had pushed her against a wall, pinned her arms and forcibly kissed her at a meeting in January of that year while meeting to discuss a forthcoming assignment for the Super Bowl. While she reported the conduct to a human resources representative at the network, she contends that the network made a decision to protect Dixon and allow him to remain with the company. The allegations were first reported by Katie Strang of The Athletic.
Stewart-Binks was a full-time employee at FS1 when the network launched in 2013, and she remained with the company until 2016. The lawsuit describes a meeting with Dixon in which he allegedly informed her that she was “not funny, interesting or talented,” along with being unable to handle “big moments on TV.” This meeting is said to have taken place at a hotel bar in Marina Del Ray, Calif., and also included a remark that Stewart-Binks was “not hot enough to be a hot girl on TV.” FOX Sports did not reply to a request for comment on this story.
Stewart-Binks was then invited to come to Dixon’s hotel room for a beer and to see the view from his balcony. The complaint claims that the request set off “alerts” in her mind, but she felt compelled to oblige since he was her boss. After the aforementioned meeting, she allegedly fled the room and called a friend to explain what had happened.
A few days later, Stewart-Binks was working as a host on a Super Bowl show featuring Jason Whitlock. During a subsequent production meeting, the lawsuit alleges that a producer informed the crew that former New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski had recently revealed having been a stripper in college. The producer and others are said to have encouraged Stewart-Binks into having Gronkowski doing moves reminiscent of Magic Mike with hopes of creating “a viral moment.”
The lawsuit claims that she agreed to this request in an attempt “to prove that she was fun and belonged in FS1’s new regime.” One month later, she was said to have been informed that her contract would not be renewed by the network, and she was contacted by a human resources official the following June as they were looking at allegations made against former FS1 executive Jamie Horowitz.
Stewart-Binks is also said to have informed the human resources official about what occurred with Dixon and provided the employee with the names of two people at FOX that she informed about the account. The two employees corroborated this account with the official, according to the complaint. Horowitz was fired from the company in July 2017, but Dixon remained at the network as its executive vice president of content.
This lawsuit follows a separate lawsuit filed earlier in the month by former network hairstylist Noushin Faraji that has brought forth allegations against Dixon, along with Skip Bayless and Joy Taylor. That lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, could also be expanded to include FOX Sports executives Eric Shanks and Mark Silverman based on discovery.
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