Suspicion is swirling after an ex-Fox News reporter didn’t appear in her regular weekend anchor seat after publicly accusing President Trump of making a pass at her while married to Melania.
Courtney Friel was noticeably missing from her regularly scheduled Saturday and Sunday anchoring slots at KTLA in Los Angeles, where she’s worked since 2013.
The absences came just days after the Daily News first reported on Trump’s alleged advances revealed in excerpts of Friel’s new memoir, “Tonight At 10: Kicking Booze and Breaking News,” which published Tuesday.
A source said Friel did not ask for the weekend off and was planning to leave Monday for her book tour after she completed her weekend anchor duties.
“Courtney will be back on KTLA’s air January 18 when her vacation ends,” Nexstar Media Group spokesman Gary Weitman told The News in a short statement Thursday that didn’t elaborate on the missed dates. Nexstar owns KTLA.
According to the Daily Beast, Friel was asked about the on-air absence when she was ambushed by a paparazzo while shopping at a Whole Foods in West Hollywood on Saturday.
“Why are you not on the news right now?” the paparazzo reportedly asked.
“That’s a good question. I’m the weekend anchor, ask them,” Friel responded, according to The Beast.
“Do you think you’re going to be fired?” the cameraman reportedly asked.
“I hope not. I love my job,” she replied, according to a witness who spoke to The Beast.
“No woman can be legally retaliated against for speaking out about sexual harassment; it’s a protected activity under federal and California law,” Nancy Erika Smith, an employment lawyer who repped Gretchen Carlson in her harassment lawsuit against former Fox boss Roger Ailes, told The Beast.
Friel was traveling on her book tour Thursday and unable to comment, her spokesman Steve Honig told The News.
She first joined Fox News in 2007, two years after Trump married Melania. She left the network well before he launched his successful bid for the White House in 2015.
In her book, Friel says Trump told her she was “the hottest one at Fox News” and called her office line a few weeks after she mentioned an interest in working as a judge on his Miss USA beauty pageant.
“Though he said I couldn’t be a judge since I worked at a different network, he did ask me about my career goals and complimented my work at FNC,” Friel, 39, writes.
“Then, out of nowhere, he said: ‘You should come up to my office sometime, so we can kiss,'” Friel claims.
The journalist says she was “shocked” by the overture.
“‘Donald,’ I responded, ‘I believe we’re both married.’ I quickly ended the call,” she writes.
Friel says in her memoir that the creepy come-on made it difficult for her to report on Trump’s presidential run “with a straight face.”
“It infuriated me that he would call all the women who shared stories of his bold advances liars. I totally believe them,” she writes.
“At least now I can joke that I could have banged the President — but I passed,” she states in the book.
