She is about to watch a clip from her time as a Fox Sports host and reporter. It is a moment that she thinks about often, but one that she has never wanted to relive in full. She hits play on the video, then her hands jerk back toward her chest, as if bracing for a blow. The set is meant to evoke a Super Bowl party.
Red Solo cups. Beers chilling in an ice bucket on the coffee table. I would need, like, a bachelorette party? He dances briefly in front of Stewart-Binks, then straddles her and thrusts his hips toward her, grinding on her as the cameras roll. Stewart-Binks, laughing, takes out some crumpled dollar bills and hands them to Gronkowski.
The dancing lasts about six seconds. She begins to cry. She was accused of setting back the efforts of women working in sports journalism and betraying feminism entirely. Some of the criticism came from friends and colleagues. Now, she wants those critics to know why she participated in the segment, and providing that context requires sharing what she says happened to her in the days beforehand.
In that lawsuit, she alleges that about a week before the Gronkowski segment she was sexually assaulted by Dixon during a meeting at a hotel that he organized under the auspices of talking about her Super Bowl week duties. Dixon is also a defendant in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by former FS1 hairstylist Noushin Faraji. Dixon did not respond to text, voice and email messages seeking comment. At the time, we promptly hired a third-party firm to investigate and addressed the matter based on their findings.
Days after the alleged assault, when producers in San Francisco told her that FS1 wanted a viral moment out of Gronkowski, she said she never considered the implications of the stunt, only what would happen if she refused with Dixon watching from the set. Stewart-Binks grew up in Toronto, and her mother was a broadcast reporter and her father worked in the medical device industry. Her entry into sports journalism in Canada was scrappy and unglamorous.
