Strippers, Lewd Comments, Sexual Memes: The Wild HR Complaint Against Ed Henry

When Ed Henry decamped last August from Real America’s Voice to Newsmax, where he now serves as an anchor, staffers at his new network fumed over the hiring of a cable news veteran whose career has been mired by scandal.

What wasn’t known at the time was an internal complaint lodged against Henry at RAV alleging he sent sexually explicit messages and made inappropriate comments to a young female staffer at the network.

Mediaite has obtained the complaint, sent by the staffer to the human resources department of Real America’s Voice, which contained the allegations as well as screenshots of a series of sexually explicit text messages Henry allegedly sent her. Mediaite is not disclosing the identity of the staffer. Multiple sources confirmed the authenticity of the complaint.

Filed in December 2022, the complaint claimed Henry and Karyn Turk, his co-host on the program American Sunrise, fostered a hostile work environment at RAV’s West Palm Beach offices in the summer and fall of that year.

The memo starts with an allegation that Henry sent a text message joking that the producer should have a female host on the network grab his testicles. “Hook a brotha up,” Henry allegedly messaged her.

The staffer responded: “I’m literally dead,” along with several skull emojis.

“He had started this ‘deez nutz’ running joke on air,” the staffer wrote. “At first, I thought he was just trying to be funny, but he went way too far. He followed up the text with another comment in the studio, he said something about how ‘would I suck on deez dick.’”

Turk, the staffer said, overheard the comment and was “shocked.” The staffer said she went to RAV owner Robert Sigg for help, and that she pointed out the sexual misconduct allegations lodged against Henry in the past.

“I tried to explain to Rob that Ed had a past, as did Karyn, but Rob cut me off several times, because he said I wasn’t to speak about what anyone has done in the past. I tried to argue that this was in the present, but then he was really angry,” the staffer wrote. “I was afraid of both Ed and Karyn, and I did tell Rob that.”

Eventually, the staffer said, she bought a Nerf gun to fire at Henry whenever he made “deez nutz” jokes on air, which she described in the complaint as “a playful way to at least limit the amount of times he said it.”

A spokesperson for Henry disputed the staffer’s account, saying in a statement to Mediaite, “‘Deez nuts’ was a running joke by many employees at Real Americas Voice.”

“It’s satire,” they said. “This was referenced many times on-air. The employee in question tweeted about this and actively engaged in communications designed to maximize the joke on-air. There was no sexual nature to this phrase and even the owner of RAV, Rob Sigg, sent pics around with shirts with this saying on it.”

In her complaint, the staffer alleged that through a series of escalating comments, Henry established a “grooming” relationship with her.

“I really wanted to save the company from what I realized is Ed’s grooming behavior,” she wrote. “First, he makes a joke about sexual things until it feels ‘normal’, and then the personal comments come (put my ___ in your mouth, etc.. Then he finally got Karyn to accommodate him and defend him.”

“I don’t think any of this is normal,” she said.

The staffer also claimed that Henry, who is married, had an affair with Turk, who was ousted from RAV around the same time as Henry’s departure.

In a statement to Mediaite, Turk adamantly denied the claim of an extramarital affair, and said she provided an affidavit to his lawyers stating so.

The staffer claimed in the complaint that her career at RAV “all came to an end within weeks after Ed Henry and Karyn Turk, cohosts of the morning show became a couple.”

She alleged that in November 2022, she was berated by Turk over her work. “I couldn’t believe how scary she looked, she looked as though she was about to pounce and hurt me,” the staffer wrote. “She was screaming like she had lost her mind.” She said Turk grabbed her on the shoulder, prompting the staffer to call Sigg and say she could not work with Turk or Henry any longer. Turk denied she yelled at or grabbed the staffer in a statement to Mediaite.

“This HR complaint was a shock, I learned of it after leaving RAV,” Turk said. “It is concerning that the corporation withheld this information, especially when the accusations seem defamatory. My departure at the company left me feeling uneasy, promises were not kept. I felt I was treated unfairly, this certainly adds to it.”

Turk added: “I was not a part of any of these communications or group texts. Ed Henry did not drive the company culture, it existed before we walked in.”

A spokesperson for RAV told Mediaite that the network conducted an independent investigation into the staffer’s claims: “In the event of a human resources complaint, company policy is to bring in a third-party expert for an evaluation and an independent investigation as warranted, which was done in this matter.”

They did not say what the results of the investigation were.

Henry spent a lot of time talking about strip clubs, the staffer said in her complaint. At the start of her career at RAV, she wrote, Henry brought one of her co-workers to a strip club in Florida. He “also texted and talked a lot about strippers in the office and in texts with many of us who are young producers,” she wrote.

In one text from Henry to a group chat that included the staffer, he sent a photo at what appeared to be a strip club with a drink in one hand and his other wrapped around a scantily clad woman. He captioned the image: “I will be busy next couple of days.”

Screenshots of text messages between Henry and the staffer that were reviewed by Mediaite contain a number of sexually explicit memes. In some cases, the staffer responded positively to the messages.

One meme allegedly sent by Henry read: “sex before marriage is a sin unless you do it doggy style because all dogs go to heaven. Follow me for more biblical loopholes.” The staffer responded with her own meme that stated: “Alrighty then.”

Another meme allegedly sent by Henry showed a man with a half-shaved head and the caption: “how girls be looking when they shave their coochie but forget their butthole.”

Another message said to have been sent by Henry included a photo of a blonde woman in her underwear and a crop top t-shirt emblazoned with: “I’m so good Santa came twice.”

The staffer, who is no longer working at RAV, said in her complaint she felt she was being “pushed out” of the network after speaking out about the work environment.

“I would like to have my job back,” the staffer said. “If getting my job back at this point is not an option, I guess I’d just like for this to go on record to help get to the bottom of this and avoid instances such as these in the future for the sake of the company, because that has been my top priority all along.”

Henry was once a star on Fox News, where he served as an anchor and the network’s chief White House correspondent. He was fired after a Fox News producer, Jennifer Eckhart, accused him of sexual assault. Henry has denied the allegations, but Eckhart filed a lawsuit against him and Fox News that is currently in litigation.

The Eckhart allegation wasn’t Henry’s first brush with Fox’s HR department; he took a leave of absence for four months in 2016 following reports he had an affair with a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

Now at Newsmax, Henry’s past still follows him. Mediaite previously reported that his hiring at the conservative cable news network sparked outrage internally given his alleged history of inappropriate conduct. Newsmax did not respond to requests for comment.

Eden Quainton, Henry’s lawyer, issued the following statement when reached by Mediaite: “Please be advised that the allegations you are reporting are false. We will vigorously pursue all those who spread lies about Mr. Henry.”