Andreana Kostantina Tantaros is an American conservative political analyst and commentator. She was a co-host of Outnumbered on Fox News Channel, and an original co-host of The Five. She sued Fox News in August 2016, claiming sexual harassment. The case was dismissed in court in May 2018.
Early years
Tantaros was born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where she attended Parkland High School. Her father is a Greek immigrant, and her mother is of Italian descent. Her family ownedthe Pied Piper Diner, where she worked. She graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in French and journalism, being fluent also in Greek and Spanish. As she was finishing her degree, Andrea worked as an intern for CNN's Crossfire program, when she helped cover the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. Her journal notes during the experience depict her advising herself to "Make yourself invaluable. Ask questions... Be a jack of all trades." She completed her graduate studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, where she earned a master's degree. After returning from Paris in 2003, Tantaros moved to Washington, D.C.
Career
Tantaros worked as a spokeswoman for Massachusetts GovernorWilliam Weld, then Congressman Pat Toomey and former National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Thomas Reynolds. After moving to New York City in 2005, she started Andrea Tantaros Media, which provided crisis management and media strategy consulting to Fortune 500 companies and political campaigns. Tantaros joined Fox News Channel in April 2010 as a political contributor. In 2011, she was named a co-host of The Five. After several months of airing, The Five consistently beat its competitors on MSNBC and CNN combined and by 2013, it was the second-most watched program in cable news. Tantaros went on to co-host Outnumbered in 2014. After initiating formal complaints of sexual harassment against Fox News personnel, on April 25, 2016, she was pulled from the show for what Fox News said were "contract issues." In August 2016, Tantaros filed a lawsuit claiming that she approached Fox News executives about Roger Ailessexually harassing her in 2015. She said that her allegations resulted first in her being demoted from The Five to Outnumbered, and then in her being taken off the air in April 2016. The lawsuit also claimed that Bill O'Reilly, Dean Cain, and Scott Brown made inappropriate comments to her, and that Brown and Cain touched her without her consent. Her amended complaint, filed on January 29, 2018, contained details intended to back up her claims of a culture of harassment—including spying on employees—at the network. However, that complaint, too, was rejected. On May 18, 2018, Judge George B. Daniels threw her case out, citing lack of "factual support." Tantaros, with no formal legal training, had decided to represent herself in the case after going through three lawyers.
Books
Tied Up in Knots: How Getting What We Wanted Made Women MiserableBroadside Books, 256 pages Tantaros' editor Michael Krechmer filed a lawsuit claiming that he was the ghostwriter of the book, and Tantaros did not pay him the full amount they agreed to. In response, Tantaros insisted that she wrote the book herself, and her attorney at the time indicated his opinion that "We have good reason to believe Fox News is behind this case." Tantaros also claims that he fed information about her to Fox News in violation of her confidentiality agreement with him as her editor. The lawsuit was dismissed. Krechmer appealed the dismissal and lost the appeal, too.
