Fox Business used the sexuality of an estate sale organizer as an excuse to cancel a pending reality show and outed the man in the process, the producers of “Pawn Stars” claimed in a new legal filing on Thursday.
In June, Leftfield Pictures sued Fox News Network , Fox Business’ parent company, for breach of contract after the network failed to pay the production company despite ordering 26 episodes of a new Fox Business reality series based on a family that runs lucrative estate sales.
Fox News had filed a counter-suit alleging fraud by Leftfield, saying the company did not produce the cast of characters it promised, including a “traditional” family structure at its core.
In its new filing, though, Leftfield alleged that Fox executive VP of business and legal affairs Dianne Brandi and director of special programming Brian Gaffney tried to scapegoat the production company to save face with Fox News boss Roger Ailes. Further, the network’s countersuit effectively outed the sexuality of one of the cast members and invaded his privacy.
The new filing alleged that when Gaffney and Brandi felt their jobs and reputations were on the line, the network began a series of probes into the personal lives of the reality cast, in particular a man named Silas.
Through their line of questioning, the filing said, the network executives determined Silas might be a gay man with a “non-traditional” family structure with no blood or legal ties to the “sons” that worked with him at the family business.
“It has become all too obvious that the reason for Fox News’ newfound curiosity was their determined effort to find something about the show that they could point to as an excuse to kill it,” the new filing said.
“At this point, the lies of Fox News are so numerous that one wonders if Fox News can even keep track of them,” the filing continued.
Representatives for Fox News has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.