A Deep Dive Into The Accuracy Of Bombshell And The Fox News Sexual Harassment Scandal

Bombshell releases in the UK this month after a successful US release in December and a slew of award nominations. However, the real women behind the story of sexual harassment at Fox News are coming out with their own thoughts, noting some inaccuracies in the retelling of their lives.

Megyn Kelly, the character that Charlize Theron plays in the film, hosted a round-table about the film with three other victims at Fox including Juliet Huddy, Rudi Bakhtiar, Julie Zann – as well as her husband Doug Brunt who also appears in the film .

‘I have no connection to the movie “Bombshell,” other than I lived it,’ Kelly wrote on Instagram. ‘I did not produce, consult on, or have anything to do with the film. Neither I nor the women I watched it with sold the rights to our stories (or in my case, my book), so it was somewhat jarring to see a version of our experiences told by strangers.’

Bombshell follows the stories of three women: Kelly; former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson (played by Nicole Kidman) and Kayla Pospisil, a fictional character inspired by the stories of 20 women at Fox (portrayed by Margot Robbie). In the film, more than 20 other women come forward to report sexual harassment after Carlson and Kelly’s admissions, accusing Fox CEO Roger Ailes (who died in 2017), anchor Bill O'Reilly and other powerful men in the organisation.

While all of the women in the round-table considered the film important, with Bakhtiar calling it ‘powerful’, they all said they were not consulted on the film and recalled some factual inaccuracies. For example, Kelly and Bakhtiar said the scene where Kelly asks Margot Robbie’s character about her experience of harassment were ‘bullshit’.

‘Did you think what you’re silence would mean for me?’ Pospisil asks Kelly in the film, after admitting she had been harassed too. ‘You have power. Why are you playing by old rules? You’re Megyn Kelly.’

‘Look around snowflake,’ Kelly replies. ‘How do you think I succeeded? How do you think a woman gets a prime time Fox show?

The real-life women called the scene ‘shameful’, ‘victim-shaming’ and ‘unfactual’, with Zann stating Kelly was ‘a real support system’ for a lot of women. Further alleged inaccuracies include the idea that Kelly asked the Murdochs – who own Fox News – or Ailes before she famously questioned Trump about his comments on women at the Republican Party presidential debate, and that Ailes liked the question because it ‘created controversy’.

‘That is a fantasy,’ Kelly said. ‘Roger was very angry at me for asking me and at one point actually said to me “no more female empowerment stuff”. There were also no protests against Kelly at the conference. The women run through the inaccuracies at four minutes in:

However, the biggest takeaway from the real-life victims was that they didn’t show the true extent of Ailes' harassment and the impact on victims.

‘It was worse than that,’ Zann said after the screening. ‘That was my immediate takeaway like “wow this is it, you really let Roger off easy”.’

The women’s reaction has since inspired debate over how ethical it is to create such a sensitive film based on true events without consultation with victims. Bombshell creators, Jay Roach and Charles Randolph, are yet to weigh in.

Bombshell comes out in the UK on the 17th January.

Read More: The men accused of sexual harassment during #MeToo