Gretchen Carlson

Gretchen Carlson was an American TV newscaster who was best known as a co-host for the morning news program "Fox & Friends" (Fox, 1998-). Born and raised in Minnesota, Carlson was a standout violinist as a young girl. Throughout her teens she performed the violin all throughout her state, and was even a featured soloist with the prestigious Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. By her early 20s, Carlson competed in various beauty competitions all throughout the state. She won Miss Minnesota in 1988, and the following year became the third woman in Minnesota history to win the prestigious Miss America pageant. With her national profile on the rise, Carlson could have easily parlayed her Miss America win into a career in entertainment. But instead she decided to finish her studies at Stanford University, and later abroad at England's Oxford University. By the late '90s Carlson decided to pursue a career as a TV journalist, and landed a number of on-air TV anchor positions for various local affiliates throughout the country. In 2000 she landed a job working as an on-air weekend co-anchor for CBS's "The Early Show" (CBS, 1999-2012), and stayed in that role at the network for the next five years. Then in 2005 she got her big break when she was asked to become a co-anchor for the widely watched morning news program "Fox & Friends." She stayed at "Fox & Friends" for the next eight years, becoming one of the news network's biggest stars in the process, and in 2013 was awarded her own daytime news program called "The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson" (Fox, 2013-16). After 11 years at Fox, however, Carlson informed her audience via Twitter in June of 2016 that her contract had not been renewed. A day later it came to light that Carlson had filed sexual harassment charges against Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. In light of Carlson's charges, several additional women came forward with similar charges against Ailes, thus forcing him to resign from the network. In the aftermath of Ailes' resignation, an outpouring of support for Carlson erupted on social media, with millions of people on Twitter using the hashtag #StandWithGretchen. Fox News settled Carlson's lawsuit following Ailes' resignation, reportedly for $20 million. In January 2018, Carlson was chosen to lead the Miss America organization after a scandal involving sexist emails among the organization's leaders came to light.