Jennifer Eckhart, Former Fox Producer Who Accused Ed Henry of Rape, Dies at 36
Jennifer Eckhart, a former Fox Business associate producer who accused the network’s onetime star anchor Ed Henry of rape in a 2020 lawsuit, has died in Florida. She was 36.
A spokesperson for the Martin County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed her death to TMZ, which reported it on Monday, and law enforcement sources told the outlet the case had been ruled a suicide.
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Police were seen outside Jen Marie Eckhart‘s home in Hobe Sound on Saturday morning, and she was reportedly found dead inside. The initial report carried no statement from her family.
Ms. Eckhart joined Fox in January 2013 and worked there until 2020, rising from administrative assistant to production assistant, booker and associate producer. She produced “The Claman Countdown” on Fox Business, and her professional biography said she arranged segments with newsmakers including Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Bill Gates.
Earlier in her career, she was a correspondent for ESPN Radio, where she hosted the 2011 college football awards red carpet, and an entertainment anchor at WUFT-TV in Gainesville, Fla.
Her name became widely known on July 20, 2020, when she filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manhattan against Fox News and Mr. Henry. Cathy Areu, a Fox News guest commentator, joined the complaint and accused Mr. Henry and the hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Howard Kurtz of sexual harassment. Fox News denied Ms. Areu’s claims, and Wigdor LLP, which has litigated several harassment cases against the network, represented Ms. Eckhart.
Ms. Eckhart said her connection to Mr. Henry began in 2014, when she was a 24-year-old production assistant and he was the network’s chief White House correspondent.
She alleged that he coerced her into sex by tying it to her career, forced a sex act on her at the network’s New York headquarters, and, two years later, raped her in a Manhattan hotel room after handcuffing her. Mr. Henry denied the accusations through his lawyers, who said she had initiated and encouraged a consensual relationship.
Fox News said it learned of her allegations on June 25, 2020, and fired Mr. Henry on July 1 after an outside law firm investigated. The network also said no one had raised concerns about him before Wigdor LLP became involved.
Ms. Eckhart said she was fired in June after reporting a toxic workplace to human resources in February. Court filings, however, showed she was terminated after several poor performance reviews. In a CBS interview days after filing suit, she said she had been “paralyzed by fear” and believed Mr. Henry could destroy her career.
The case moved slowly. In March 2025, Judge Ronnie Abrams of Federal District Court in Manhattan dismissed Fox News from the suit while allowing most claims against Mr. Henry to proceed toward a jury trial. Ms. Eckhart said the fight was “bigger than me” and vowed to appeal. In June 2025, court filings showed she had reached a settlement with Mr. Henry, whose lawyer, Gary Rosen, called the outcome fair to both sides.
Her lawyers had told the court that the F.B.I. examined Mr. Henry for a possible sex trafficking indictment, though none ever came. This April, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Fox News in an unpublished decision, finding she had not shown the network knew of Mr. Henry’s alleged conduct. Mr. Henry later became an anchor at Newsmax.
After leaving Fox, Ms. Eckhart reinvented her career. In August 2021 she launched “Reinvented With Jen Eckhart,” an independent weekly podcast about people who overcame serious obstacles, with the singer Sean Paul as her first guest. Later guests included Kathy Ireland, Brian Cuban, the wrestler Chris Jericho and the quarterback Brett Favre. She also founded The Reinvented Project, a nonprofit that supports trauma survivors through animal-assisted healing.
Anyone in the United States who is struggling with thoughts of suicide can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Readers elsewhere can find local services at findahelpline.com.
