A year ago, Sydney Watson was poised to be a new star in the heady world of right-wing media. She was a few months into co-hosting a show on Glenn Beck’s The Blaze, an online video network and launching pad for big conservative personalities like Tomi Lahren and Dana Loesch. Watson had signed a multi-year deal with Blaze Media that she claims was worth nearly $1.3 million.
But Watson had a problem: her co-host, pugnacious Blaze pundit Elijah Schaffer. Watson thought Schaffer was setting her up to fail, insisting on “grossly misogynistic” guests and even joking on Twitter about how he wanted her to sleep with talk radio host Sebastian Gorka.
According to Watson, Schaffer was often drunk on set, slugging shots of liquor around recording time. Schaffer was obsessed with talking about “sex, often specifically gay sex,” in Watson’s account, and would talk about it frequently around her and their guests.
After months of complaints from Watson, Blaze CEO Tyler Cardon allegedly came to her with a gripe of his own—could she convince Schaffer to cut down on all the penis talk? As Watson put it, Cardon asked her to get Schaffer to “stop talking about dicks so much.” But in her telling, Watson knew it was pointless: Schaffer would never listen to a woman.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday against The Blaze, Watson says her career was derailed after Blaze Media management ignored her warnings about Schaffer’s sexual harassment. The lawsuit portrays Watson as a woman struggling to make her way in a conservative media company where concerns about harassment were ignored.
Schaffer was ultimately fired from The Blaze in September, after allegedly drunkenly assaulting another Blaze Media host by groping her breasts during a movie premiere. At the time, The Blaze tweeted he had been fired for “violating company policies and standards.”
But Watson’s claims in her lawsuit that executives at The Blaze knew that Schaffer’s problems with female employees went back far earlier.
“The Blaze management was fully aware that they had a problem with Mr. Schaffer, but he was their ‘star,’” the lawsuit reads. “He was abusive and sexist to other women at The Blaze as well.”
Asked for comment, Watson’s attorney Kurt Schlichter, a conservative media personality in his own right, referred The Daily Beast to the complaint.
The Blaze and Schaffer didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time. After publication of this article, The Blaze reached out to note, “The claims alleged in this complaint are false. We look forward to prevailing in this matter, where the plaintiff’s statements, emails, and text messages will show in her own words why this case might generate publicity but will fail on the merits.”
Schaffer made his name on the right covering protests and riots in 2020. Starting in Sept. 2021, Watson and Schaffer co-hosted a talk show for The Blaze called You Are Here from The Blaze’s Texas studios.
