One of the fiercest, most unapologetically badass women, Gretchen Carlson, goes one-on-one with Jen Eckhart on REINVENTED! Gretchen has reinvented herself as a successful journalist, former Miss America, an N.Y. Times bestselling author, a TED talk alum, People T.V. special contributor, co-founder of the non-profit Lift Our Voices, and has been named one of Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World."

But did you also know that she successfully spearheaded a history-making bipartisan bill that JUST passed in Congress and is on its way to President Biden's desk to be signed into law? Yeah. She did THAT! In this powerful episode, Gretchen and Jen discuss their former workplace, Fox News, Gretchen's journey into pageantry, how she managed to overcome gender discrimination and body shaming her whole life, her decision to file a bombshell lawsuit against the most powerful man in news, and why she has made it her mission in life to make workplaces safer in the U.S.

Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. You can also follow @JenniferEckhart on social media. Thanks for listening!

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REINVENTED With Journalist & Advocate Gretchen Carlson

JE: This is a special episode of my show because I am not only joined by a successful journalist who is an internationally recognized advocate for women's rights, but she happens to be a former colleague of mine. Having both worked at Fox News together for many years, Gretchen Carlson is about as fierce as it gets. Her bold actions against former Fox News Chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, helped pave the way for the global #MeToo Movement. She's also a former Miss America, a New York Times Bestselling Author, a TED Talk alum, a People TV Special Contributor, the Cofounder of the nonprofit, Lift Our Voices, and has also been named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. Is there anything this woman doesn't do? Gretchen, it is an honor having you on the show.

GC: Thank you. It’s great to see you and be on your show. Congrats on that.

JE: Thank you. I feel lucky to have you on my show because you're all over the news right now. You're like a hot ticket item. You achieved something major in Congress. I'm going to get to that in a minute. For right now, I want to peel back the layers of Gretchen so that my readers get to know you and the person you are on a more intimate level. Of all the titles and roles you've juggled, former Miss America turned Fox News Anchor turned author turned internationally recognized trailblazer for women's rights in the workplace, even a mother of two adorable kids, I need to know, to what do you attribute as the driving force behind being able to constantly reinvent yourself?

GC: I am the poster child for reinvention. I always use it as inspiration, especially for young people who are struggling to know what they want to do with their life or middle-aged women who suddenly struggle with what they may want to do with their lives if they've raised their children, their changing careers, or whatever it might be. My life is a guidebook for that.

I started off growing up in a small town in Minnesota. Music happened to be something that I was led to. I started playing the violin when I was six years old. Immediately, it became serious. I started practicing 4 and 5 hours a day. It was going to be my career. My goal at that time was to be a famous concert violinist and travel the world playing symphonies.

I burned out when I was seventeen, much to the chagrin of my parents after all of the time invested. I wanted to focus more on my academics and other things that I enjoyed in life. I went off to Stanford University to do that. I got a phone call from my mom when I was studying at Oxford University. She said, “I found the perfect thing for you to do.” I said, “What?” She said, “I saw in the newspaper the Miss America competition, that they're basing 50% of their points on talent. You've got that. You should try and do this.” I said, “Are you nuts?” First of all, I'm from Minnesota, which isn't known as a pageant state. I play classical violin, which has never won. I've never been in pageants, but my mom has been the driving force in my life.

JE: You mean for the talent portion, you didn't do the Miss Congeniality with the water glasses?

GC: This was all a strategy for my mom to get me back to playing my violin. I went in this other totally different direction, but like everything else in my life, I decided to give it 150% if I was going to be doing it. That happened to work out. Now all of a sudden, I'm doing something I never expected as Miss America. Talk about reinvention.

That gave me the communication skills to be a public speaker because you always have to make up speeches on your feet without a lot of advanced warning. It got me interested in television. I was going to be a lawyer. I had taken my LSAT. That was, again, another reinvention. I decided to give TV a try because I knew my LSATs were good for five years in case TV didn't work out.

I stuck with TV. I went from working in Richmond, Virginia to Cincinnati to Cleveland to Dallas to eventually CBS News in New York and then Fox. Reinventing myself again as a poster child for sexual harassment in the workplace was not something that was something I aspired to or ever thought would be on my resume. Hearkening back to my good Protestant work ethic and upbringing and my parents always telling me I could do whatever I wanted to be and teaching me how to speak up and have guts and fight for myself, that all came into play all those years later when I decided to jump off the cliff.

Since then, I've been reinventing myself as an advocate, as a person trying to change laws on Capitol Hill, and as a Cofounder of a nonprofit, Lift Our Voices. It keeps going on and on. I certainly hope that my life can be an inspiration to other people who are struggling with what am I supposed to be doing. I believe that everyone has a passion project. Sometimes it takes reading this or something to get you moving in the right direction

JE: Spark that fire. I have chills listening to your story. I know that we've been efforting this for some time to have you on the show, but you are the poster child for reinvention. You shared details of your life that I didn't even know. I didn't even know you took the LSATs and that you were passionate about the violin. When a lot of people look at you, they think, “She got lucky. She got handed her anchor roll on Fox News,” but that's not at all what happened. You had to fight, scratch, and claw your way to the top. You were crowned Miss America in 1989.

I know pageants have evolved a lot over the years. In fact, you were instrumental in eliminating the swimsuit portion of the competition, which is great. Instead of focusing on physical appearance, they now have to speak about themselves, their goals, and how they plan on contributing to society and giving back to the community. When I look at the world of pageantry and the feminist icon that you are now, I am curious because I don't see you as that pageant girl, what inspired you? Was it your mom that pushed you into pageantry? What got you into that brutal world in your twenties?

GC: I wasn't even in it that long because I was fortunate enough to win the first few competitions and then I was Miss Minnesota. You have to plan ahead because you don't have that much time after you win the state to go to the national competition. There’s a lot of luck involved in it. My talent helped me a lot. A big portion of your points is based on interviews. Being incredibly well-read and well-studied helped me along the way, too. Certainly, a tremendous amount of luck.

One of the other main reasons I did it was because all the money you win in the Miss America system only is scholarship money. What people don't understand is that I paid for my whole last year of Stanford University with the scholarship money, the $50,000 I won from becoming Miss America. That was certainly a blessing to my parents who had four children that they were trying to put through college. I'm sure every parent can attest to how expensive that is. Those are the reasons that I did it.

I do think that I've always been a feminist at heart. I'd call my mom when I got my first job on TV and I'd be like, “Mom, do you realize women are not paid the same as men to do the same work?” She'd be like, “Why do you always have to talk about women's rights?” I'm like, “It’s because I'm living it and I'm seeing the inequities.” It wasn't that I was ignorant. It was that I had never experienced inequities as a child, because with my music, they picked the best player. They didn't care if you were a girl or a boy.

In school, they're not going to mark your test wrong because you're a woman or a man. I had never experienced inequities until I got to my first job. It was eye-opening to me. It was interesting because many years later, my mom ended up running our family business as the President when my dad retired. The first thing she did was she called me up and she goes, “Now I know why you were always talking about that.” She then started seeing the inequities and how women were treated.

It comes full circle. I always say my life has worked in mysterious ways. Probably a lot of other feminists look at me and go, “How can you be Miss America and also be a feminist?” I believe they align for the purposes that I said. Especially with getting rid of the swimsuit competition, I don't believe that women should have to walk around in 4-inch heels in a bikini to be able to earn scholarship money and to play their talent. The system has evolved.

JE: Thanks to you for making those changes.

GC: Also, a lot of other people. Miss America has always been emblematic of where women are at that point in time in society. Certainly, women's roles and rights have changed dramatically over the last several years.

JE: You had to fight through a lot of gender discrimination, challenges, and body shaming to get to where you are now. In fact, one of the male judges for Miss America called you Miss Piggy. The body shaming you experienced in your early twenties led to years of self-image issues and self-doubt. We've all experienced forms of that. It feels similar to the pain of being a sexual harassment survivor.

I hate the saying, Gretchen, “Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” It's such BS. Words hurt. We internalize that. What advice do you have for my readers out there who might be struggling with those same insecurity issues and who may be internalizing that pain? What do you have to say to them?

GC: First and foremost, I'm right there with you because no matter how strong a person might be perceived to be, you still feel it. You're human. Going back to that judge, not only did he call me Miss Piggy, he wrote an entire book about his judging experience. He was a famous Hollywood director, William Goldman. He died. He did Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He did The Princess Bride. He was a well-known movie director. He wrote a whole book about judging Miss America and called me Miss Piggy throughout. I was mortified. First of all, I have struggled with my weight my whole life. I was a tomboy growing up. I come from good Swedish stock.

I'm muscley. Being thin is not something that's on my radar screen. To be called that was doubly mortifying because I've always been thinking about that and conscious of it like so many women are. It was painful that when I was meeting my husband to be on a blind date, this is before the internet, I was scared to death he was going to go to the library and look up this book and read that I was Miss Piggy. That's how deeply internalized these kinds of things happen. We fast forward now to 2022 and how people feel about social media and how many likes they get and whether or not they're disparaged or not. Trust me, I am constantly getting horrible tweets and horrible posts on Facebook.

The way I look at that is that it's horrible and negative. My advice is to try not to look at that stuff. I know how hard that is because that's the society that we're in. Certainly, don't acknowledge it and try not to look at it, but also try to kill people with kindness who come out against you. It's a good lesson I learned from my dad along the way.

“Try to kill people with kindness who come out against you. ”

Sometimes when I have the time or I'm feeling in that mood, I will respond to some of the negativity. I will say something nice like, “You must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. I hope you have a great day.” You'd be surprised how these horrible commenters come back and go, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that about you.” It's almost like they have so much pain inside of them that they lash out at people that are easy targets, which tend to be women in any other disenfranchisement.

JE: Public figures who happen to be female who are fearless and fierce like you are and are outspoken. Gretchen, it's no secret that a lot of women out there know you as the woman who took a stand. I don't say the woman who took down Roger Ailes, I hate that. You took a stand against former disgraced Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes after filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Actress Nicole Kidman played you in the movie, Bombshell. People ask me all the time if I've seen that movie. My answer is no. I'm sure you can understand it. It's triggering for me because I too lived it.

Some of which it was even worse than what was portrayed in the film. Gretchen, your bravery in coming forward did open the floodgates and peeled back the curtain to the toxic abuse that continues to plague the network to this day. In looking back at your time at Fox to where you are now, how does it feel to have inspired a wave of many other women coming forward? It’s not just at Fox but in workplaces across the country in the aftermath of enduring similar abuse.

GC: Thank you for that. It's been a surreal experience every day. I am always led in a different direction every day, speaking of reinvention. I want to credit all the women who reached out to me after my story because that's when I realized that this was an epidemic. One of the things about harassment and assault in the workplace is that you feel alone. That happens to you on purpose because companies want to make you feel like it's just you. That's why they put it into secrecy and gaslight you and make you feel like it's all your fault. I started hearing first from 10 people and then 100 people and then 1,000 people and then thousands of people. I was like, “This is its own epidemic.”

Immediately, I went into the survival mode of, “How am I going to fix this?” I hearken back to being that gutsy little girl and always going for the gold. “What am I going to do to make this better for other people?” Furthermore, I feel blessed that other people at Fox eventually came forward because that helped to open the floodgates. It led to the #MeToo Movement, which Tarana Burke had already coined that phrase ten years earlier, but it moved into this global movement. Speaking of social media, that helped people to be able to come forward and then your story and many others.

I sum it up by saying that a friend of mine at the time said to me, “Gretchen, something good is going to come out of your lawsuit.” At the time, I didn't see it that way at all, but she was right. I used that story a couple of weeks ago when I was on Capitol Hill and my bill passed that something good has come of this, not only the legislation passed, which I know we're going to get to but this whole movement. The idea that I had something to do with igniting it is surreal because I never intended that to happen. I thought I was just going to come forward. I'd been fired from Fox for a career I'd killed myself for. I thought I was going to go home and cry for the next year and spend more time with my kids and my dog.

JE: Here you are passing laws in Congress.

GC: The next thing I know, I'm like, “I'm doing all this other stuff.” It's become my passion project. That's what I hope to inspire other people to find, no matter what level, small, big, huge, or tiny. Whatever makes you feel fulfilled, that's what I'm doing now. I'm still being a journalist and an author.

JE: You're also a mom. You’re juggling it all.

GC: I would sum it up by saying that I'm doing all of this for my kids because my most important job is being a mom. When I look at how I've transferred the courage to my own children, that has made the whole experience meaningful to me. To come full circle about Bombshell, because of the stringent NDAs that I had to sign that I'm fighting to also get rid of now, I can't even comment to you about whether or not Bombshell is accurate.

JE: That was going to be one of my questions and I was like, “I don't even know she's going to be able to talk about that.”

GC: I've tried to take the high road on it. I did see it.

JE: I'm going to say having worked in the building and even from the trailer alone, I've been with Fox for almost ten years. They take creative liberties. I'm sure there are inaccuracies in anything. I look forward to the day when we can have that conversation about whether or not it's accurate and how you felt about being portrayed by Nicole Kidman.

GC: I've also asked Fox to get out of my NDA, which they never responded to me, but we're going to continue to change laws so that they don't have a choice. I take the high road because of a couple of things. The idea that an actress of that caliber and also her best friend, Naomi Watts, portrayed me in The Loudest Voice, which was the miniseries on Showtime, the idea that two actresses of that high caliber would want to take on a role about sexual harassment is mind-boggling to me and such an honor because a few years ago, we weren't even making movies about sexual harassment.

JE: We weren't having these conversations.

GC: Nobody cared. That's the first thing. The second thing is, even though I couldn't participate or tell you how I feel about it, I know that the movie helped other people come forward. Even if it was only 50% accurate, it's the bigger picture for other people. For that, I'm grateful.

JE: This is the first time I'm openly sharing this on my show, but I feel comfortable sharing it because I'm in the presence of you. Even if you google my name, it's no secret. I am a survivor of rape and sexual assault by a well-known former Fox News anchor. Fox fired him in a desperate attempt to salvage their public image only after I came forward internally and threatened to file legal action to go public with what had happened to me. Fox didn't think I had the guts to file my lawsuit. My reaction to that was quite simple, “Watch me.” I embraced my inner Gretchen and said, “Try me.”

Much like you Gretchen, I had no idea the whirlwind that would ensue in the press in the days, weeks, and months to follow. For those who haven't read your book, and I have your book right here, Be Fierce, and who aren't familiar with your story, you received tons of public backlash and death threats in the aftermath of filing your lawsuit. I held your book close to me the day I filed my lawsuit. It helped me through some challenging dark days.

Can you give my readers a Reader's Digest version of what you went through and the emotions you felt the day you decided to file your lawsuit that changed the course of history? I remember reading a story in here where you were at a salon and a woman leaned over and said, “Thank you,” and tears welled up. Can you share a little bit about that?

GC: First of all, thank you for your bravery. I was honored to be able to try and guide you through that difficult time in your life. One of the blessings for me over the last few years is being able to help so many other women. I can't speak to all of them, but I know that I've helped a lot. The book, Be Fierce, was a tribute to all of the women who've gone through similar things, the millions of us. Especially to those who've been silenced as a result, which is almost all because they're pushed out of the workforce and then they're forced to sign nondisclosure so they can never say the horrible things that happened to them. By the way, how we solve things is by talking about them. That's why I'm working so hard to try and get rid of that.

The emotions for me were incredibly hard. This was the most difficult decision that I ever made in my life. I had to dig incredibly deep for the courage. I always say it wasn't like walking into a room and flipping on a light switch. Courage is something that you build up over time. I am blessed to still have my parents in my life. I wanted them to be on board with it. That took them a long time because I grew up in Minnesota where everyone's nice and people don't sue people. I can still remember sitting in the back hall of my house and my parents both called me about six months before I filed. They were both crying. They said, “We're with you. We understand what you have to do.”

“Courage is something that you build up over time.”

That was a turning point. I also went to my minister about 5 or 6 days before I filed because I found out from my lawyers that I could tell my minister what I was going to do because it was considered to be a private conversation. We cried during that meeting because my grandfather was a minister and my minister knew that. In the end, he prayed with me and told me that he was so proud of what I was about to do. He's gone now. He was up in heaven looking over me. That was a signal that I was doing the right thing. The night before, I looked into the eyes of my children and told them that mommy had been fired. The first thing my son said was, “What's going to happen to our babysitter?”

I’m like, “I understand you're concerned about her, but what about mommy? I'm going to take care of the babysitter.” I decided at that point to jump because of all those things and also this career that I had worked hard for and was being taken away from me for no reason other than retaliation. At the final moment, my husband and I were up almost all night. At about 2:00 AM in the kitchen, he finally looked at me and said, “Fox News underestimated you.” I still felt pretty sick into the morning when I knew that the case was going to be filed. I have to say that soon after, we were surprised to see the tide change because I started hearing from many other women.

Quite honestly, the parent company of Fox decided to do an investigation which we never expected. We knew Ailes would deny everything and malign me. I knew I'd get a ton of bad social media and all the Fox News anchors would come out against me. Certainly, that investigation was incredibly important because it set the wheels in motion to do something about this instead of hiding from it.

JE: I'm glad you shared that story with my readers of talking to your pastor before filing this lawsuit. I too had a similar experience. You don't even know this, Gretchen, but I went to my pastor, Jen Peterson, in confidence here in New York City. This was before I filed my lawsuit. I told her what had happened to me. I was lost. I didn't know what to do. Remember, she's a pastor. She goes, “What would Gretchen do?” She said those words to me. I was like, “You're right. You make a lot of sense here.” A lot of my readers also don't know this, but you, Gretchen, are on the phone with me essentially holding my hand from afar the day that I filed my lawsuit against our former workplace.

I didn't even know you personally, but just having your support on that scary day meant everything to me. I know I thanked you a thousand times privately, but being able to thank you publicly here on this show means the world to me. I can't get into the specifics of your case or I can't talk about my case. I'm still in litigation. What I can say is this. I hold my head high proudly and share that I'm a survivor because I now recognize that my story could be the key that unlocks someone else's prison. One of my favorite quotes is from Brene Brown that says, “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame everything you went through and it will become someone else's survival guide.”

I knew we were going to get along the time when I read the first chapter of your book, Be Fierce. I have it eared here. It says, “Are you done talking shit?” It's great. You go off to list all the horrible things that people have said to you and you go, “Welcome to my daily Twitter feed.” I was like, “Gretchen and I are going to become BFFs.”

GC: What I'm trying to change is that women don't have to face those things in their Twitter feed culturally anymore because immediately when a woman comes forward, we go, “Troublemaker, she must be making it up. We don't believe her.” We immediately put her out to pasture. We need to culturally change the way that we look at harassment and assault. Honestly, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is how important it is to educate our boys early on.

My son was young at the time. Men still rule the world, unfortunately. They make most of the decisions in the workplace. We need to make sure that those decision-makers have been raised in the correct way to respect women and pay us fairly and promote us and put us in the boardroom and not harass or assault us. That is crucial. Boys develop their opinions early on. I should be spending all my time at boys’ schools telling them about how important it is to respect women in the workplace like they might respect their own sister or mom.

These are all the lessons that I've learned along the way. Aside from laws, how do we also change the culture to acknowledge these horrible things that are happening to women and get men on our side and on our team to help us change it because we need them? We need men to help us. I've also extended a huge olive branch over the last few years to get on the right side of history to believe in women.

JE: Change is happening. I see it happening in the number of men that reached out to me in the aftermath of filing my lawsuit. I was shocked by a lot of fathers of daughters thanking me for making the workplace a little bit safer. Also, a common misconception is the amount of male sexual assault survivors that reached out to me. It's not just women.

You have such a sunny disposition on social media. I know social media is not necessarily real life, but I do feel like you are that way behind the scenes because you have such a healthy outlook on life. I don't know if it's the therapy or the trauma, but you seem to get it. On days that you are overcome with grief or when you look back on what you had to endure in order to receive justice, I am curious, what keeps Gretchen going? What keeps you putting one foot in front of the other each day with a smile on your face?

GC: It was my happy childhood. I was a happy-go-lucky kid. I was blessed to grow up in a great family with good values. They pushed me hard, but I was happy. Quite honestly, I've always loved to be social. I can be the life of the party. I've been optimistic most of my life. Not that I haven't had a tremendous amount of downfalls, but I've struggled. That's how we appreciate success. There's always been this fire in my belly to continue. Sometimes late at night, I wish I could turn it off because I'm not a great sleeper. My mind's always constantly thinking like, “What can I do next?” With everything I've been through, I have to wake up every day optimistic with a sunny disposition because I have to be optimistic that we can make this better.

“When you’ve struggled, that’s how you appreciate success.”

It's easy to wake up and be like, “I don't want to do this today.” I have some of those days. We all do. I think about all the people that I'm helping. That's why I cried tears of joy when I passed this law because it wasn't about Gretchen Carlson. It was about the millions of people that won't have to endure what you and I did potentially. That is the most rewarding thing I've done in my life aside from having my kids. That's what propels me now to do even more. We all have bad days, but when you're working to try to change the world, you have to wake up every day optimistic that the little bit of work that you're doing is a part of that effort.

JE: This episode is timely because you were successful in spearheading a landmark bipartisan bill that was passed in the US House and Senate to eradicate forced arbitration in workplace contracts for sexual assault and harassment victims. For those who don't know what arbitration is, can you explain a little bit about what it is and what the bill is eradicating?

GC: Forced arbitration is something that nobody knows about. That's the problem because companies have been able to get away with putting it in your contract without you understanding what you’re signing.

JE: It’s fancy language.

GC: The two silencing mechanisms that millions of Americans have in their contracts are forced arbitration clauses and nondisclosure agreements. On your first day of employment, you're walking around with a muzzle on. Forget face masks. You're muzzled from talking about anything bad that may happen to you at work. Who even thinks about that on their first day of employment? Nobody.

We all sign on the dotted line and we go about our business and we take home our paycheck. Fox snuck a forced arbitration clause into my final contract. I saw it and I asked about it, but I didn't make the association with thinking about doing a lawsuit and what the forced arbitration clause meant. It means that if you have a problem at work, you can't go to an open jury process. You're forced into this chamber called arbitration, which is secret.

The intent of arbitration was to unclog the court systems years ago because there were too many cases. For small business disputes, like if my neighbor knocks down my fence for $300, why should I go to the courts and clog them? No, we'll go to arbitration and we'll work this out. The problem is that companies got savvy and they started putting human rights violations into arbitration, which was never the intent.

Harassment, assault, race, age, gender discrimination, LGBTQ discrimination. What that would've meant for me, and it was one of my darkest days when my lawyer said to me, “You have a forced arbitration clause. You have no case.” I said, “What do you mean? I've got all this stuff.” They're like, “It doesn't matter. You're going over here to the secret chamber and nobody's ever going to hear from you ever again.”

Luckily, that's why they came up with the strategy to sue the CEO and Chairman, Roger Ailes, personally to try to circumvent the arbitration clause, which would've kicked in if we would've sued Fox News. That was the only way my case became public. Arguably we wouldn't be in this movement right now if I had been forced into arbitration like millions of other people because it's a secret chamber. I've been working ever since on Capitol Hill to try to change this because this is how companies have kept their dirty laundry secret for so long.

It's a bipartisan bill, which I understood from covering politics for so long that it would only work if it were bipartisan. Plus, this issue is apolitical. They don't ask you what party you're in before they assault you, rape you, or harass you. I've been walking the halls of Congress for the last few years, trying to get more Republicans on board because Democrats tend to be in favor of this already.

We introduced it first in 2017, but we reintroduced it again this past summer of 2022. It started moving forward because the movement continued and members of Congress realized, “We might have to do something about this.” I got it out of all the committees that it needed to get out of and then I got the ten Republicans in the Senate that I need it for it to pass. Each one that I got would be a celebration because I knew I had to get to that magic number of ten. It finally went to a vote in the House in February 2022 and we got 113 Republicans. It was overwhelmingly bipartisan. Four days later, it went to the Senate. It was unanimous. I was there for all of that.

I took a deep breath after that, cried tears of joy, and had a massive press conference. It was emblematic of my life because, as a journalist, you're not supposed to be the story. I have not stood up in front of that much press since I won Miss America which was a full circle of reinvention. I stood up in front of all these people with all of these senators from both sides of the aisle. I had that same feeling I had when I was 22 years old except for something totally different. I was honored to be a part of that process and to steward it to the best of my ability forward. There were many other people behind the scenes that helped and many organizations that have been fighting this battle for so long.

It was the perfect storm for me to join forces with them and be able to have a voice that maybe they didn't have to highlight and we did it. The president is signing it. This is a game-changer for people in the workplace. If you are harassed, assaulted, or raped in the workplace, you will no longer be forced into the secret chamber of arbitration. You have a choice, but the onus will be on you. I want to be clear.

They still might put a forced arbitration clause in your contract. You have to know what you're signing. If any of those things happen, you have the right to not go to the secret chamber. Let me be clear, Jen, I'm not done. My organization, Lift Our Voices, want to protect other disenfranchised groups so people of color, the LGBTQ community, and age and gender discrimination. We are already setting up meetings with members of Congress to try to push forward for other disenfranchised groups.

JE: Keep fighting the good fight, Gretchen. For too long, workers have been subjected to blatantly illegal behavior and toxic behavior, unable to speak the truth about their experiences or to warn others about the peril in that workplace. NDAs were originally intended to protect proprietary information such as trade secrets. There's still so much work to be done.

When I saw the news that your bill had passed, I started crying. I'm sure a lot of other women out there started crying. I'm sure it must feel surreal having a bill on its way to President Biden's desk to eventually be signed into law. Reflecting back on your time, you rewind to Miss America, fast forwarding to where you are now, Fox News and everything in between, what would Gretchen now tell Gretchen when she was in her twenties?

GC: To come forward with two times that I was sexually assaulted. I put it down into my gut like many women do and cried tears by myself and wondered what I had done to cause it, sad to say. I never exposed that until I wrote my memoir getting real 25 years later. I never understood it was assault until after my Fox News story came to light.

One of President Trump's victims said to me when I was interviewing her for my book, Be Fierce, “You realize those experiences that you told me about when you were 22 were assault.” I was like, “What?” As women, we don't even acknowledge that it's assault when horrible things happen to us because that's culturally how we've been told to accept it.

JE: Oftentimes, it's a trauma reaction to try to delete it from your brain. We're programmed that way.

GC: Two times when I was in America and I thought I was doing the right thing to meet with executives to try and get my foot in the door in television. It was a PR executive and a high-ranking television executive. They both assaulted me in a car. One of them pushed my head into his crotch until I couldn't breathe. Somehow, I got away from him. The other one threw himself on top of me in the backseat of the car and stuck his thumb down my throat and started penetrating my body. I was also able to escape. I never told anyone.

I wish I had the courage then to tell somebody because what we've learned through this process is that the more voices that come forward, the more people that have the courage to say, “Me, too,” the more we make a change. We realize how vast these survivors are. I wish I would've somehow found the courage to say something then. We all live and learn. My advice now to other people, especially women, is when you go into a room, whether it's school or work, sit in the front row, have your voice heard, and raise your hand.

JE: I love it. I got detention once for talking too much in class.

GC: I always got that. Girls always get that because there's a bias that when boys talk, they're somehow astute and wise. When girls talk, they're too chatty and bossy. Trust me, all women who have been successful got those comments in classes. We got to change how people think about us. Sit in the front row and raise your hand. I even still get heart palpitations when I'm in meetings, whether it's board meetings or whatever it is. I raise my hand because I'm like, “Should I say something?” It happens to all of us. Push yourself to do it. Speak up. Tell your truths. Ask for that promotion. Ask for that raise. That's the only way we're going to get this stuff and get rid of these labels.

I have the same pitfalls that so many other people do. I have to push myself, too. The greatest life lesson is that no matter how old you are, what you've been through, or how much courage you seem to have, you still have to muster it up no matter who you are. We're all in this together. My favorite quote is, “One woman can make a difference, but together we rock the world.” That's what we're doing right now. The more of us that come together and speak our truths, the more we rock.

“No matter how old you are, what you’ve been through, or how much courage you seem to have, you still have to muster it up no matter who you are.”

JE: What has inspired me personally to keep going is the army of men and women who have stood behind me in my fight. I count you among them. I know that a lot of women say to you, Gretchen, “Because of you, I speak out. Your story gives me the courage to do so.” In wrapping up here, your book Be Fierce, is next to my Bible. I'm not even kidding.

It ends with one of my favorite quotes that says, “The devil whispered in my ear, ‘You are not strong enough to withstand the storm.’ Today I whispered in the devil's ear, ‘I am the storm.’” Gretchen, you are fierce. You are a powerhouse and a force to be reckoned with. I said at the start of my interview, it's an honor having you on my show. I mean that. Thank you so much for the work that you're doing. Congratulations on your landmark bill. Continue staying fearless, my friend.

GC: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a great pleasure. I hope we've inspired more people to find their voice.

JE: To all my readers, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to REINVENTED. That's available wherever you listen to podcasts, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, you name it, it's there. That was Gretchen Carlson. Thank you for reading.

Important Links

Gretchen Carlson
Lift Our Voices
Be Fierce
Spotify - REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart
Apple - REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart
YouTube - REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart

About Gretchen Carlson

In the early years of my career as a television reporter, I entered newsrooms in Richmond, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, and New York City and was often labeled “a bimbo” or too “Minnesota nice.” Luckily, I was no stranger to being underestimated. I showed up every day prepared to prove them wrong.

As I grew into a seasoned professional, a wife, and a mother, there were countless challenges along the way (including an extremely high-profile and public sexual harassment lawsuit). But even on my toughest days, hard work was my throughline. I was determined to lead a life I could be proud of.