In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in Texas, Sydney Watson, former host of The Blaze’s “You Are Here,” alleges that co-host Elijah Schaffer created such a toxic work environment by his “constant sexism and hostile, unprofessional behavior” toward her that she experienced debilitating vertigo and emotional distress, and that management at The Blaze ignored her complaints for months before wrongfully terminating her.

Watson was an up-and-coming YouTube personality when she signed a $1.25 million multi-year contract with The Blaze in 2021. She chose to sign with The Blaze because the company represented that it was “an incubator of talent that helped accelerate the careers of such conservative commentary superstars as Dana Loesch and Tomi Lahren,” the 17-page Complaint states.

Watson is represented by Los Angeles-based trial lawyer Kurt Schlichter (who is a columnist at RedState’s sister site Townhall), and James Pikl of Scheef & Stone in Frisco, TX.

Ms. Watson has suffered injuries and the derailment of her multi-million-dollar career in conservative commentary as a result of her former employer, Defendant The Blaze, creating and tolerating a hostile work environment and allowing sexual harassment, retaliation, and discriminating against her on the basis of her sex and religion. The Blaze’s conduct was continuing, pervasive, and appalling, particularly in light of The Blaze’s representation to its audience of largely conservative Americans that it stood for solid traditional values.

Among the suit’s allegations are that Schaffer regularly drank on-set, including taking shots of hard liquor immediately prior to recording, enlisted male guests who shared his sexist and misogynistic views to harass Watson on-air, harassed Watson because she is an atheist, and more. “You Are Here” was created as an interview show focusing on politics and culture and Schaffer’s antics turned into a “sexually explicit show” that was “actively misogynistic,” Watson claims.

Mr. Schaffer would also consistently make disrespectful comments about the fact that Ms. Watson is an atheist. This also encouraged the audience to attack her, something she must still put up with today and that did not happen before Mr. Schaffer made it an issue. Much of the conduct that created the hostile work environment was of an explicitly sexual nature. Mr. Schaffer would endlessly reference sex, often specifically gay sex, and discuss penises, among other sexual matter (often graphically), in front of the guests and Ms. Watson.

In one infamous on-air incident, Watson was cussed out by Jack Murphy, and Schaffer stood by while the guest verbally abused Watson. According to the Complaint:

Ms. Watson found Murphy grossly misogynistic and he shouted at Ms. Watson when she read a YouTube livestream superchat question from a viewer regarding his controversial past (Ms. Watson had no prior knowledge of this past when she innocently read the viewer’s question).

After Murphy swore at Ms. Watson and stormed out of the studio, Mr. Schaffer went out for dinner and drinks with Murphy to “smooth” it over. Ms. Watson and members of the audience were upset at Mr. Schaffer’s reaction and his tolerance of Murphy’s abuse.

Mr. Schaffer told Ms. Watson that he refused to control Murphy because Ms. Watson was a woman and stated that if he demanded his guest stop his abuse, Ms. Watson would have looked “weaker.” Ironically, Ms. Watson, reluctantly, defended Mr. Schaffer later over the blowback. Mr. Schaffer later tweeted about the incident, embarrassing Ms. Watson.

Over a period of nine months Watson says she made both formal and informal complaints to management and even met weekly with them for part of that time. Watson says that while promises to address the situation were made, nothing was ever done.

Ms. Watson complained of the misconduct continually from December 2021 to August 2022 to various personnel at The Blaze, including but not limited to The Blaze CEO Tyler Cardon. Mr. Cardon and The Blaze did nothing to address the grievous misconduct, totally abdicating both their legal responsibilities to Ms. Watson and their moral responsibilities to Ms. Watson and as well as The Blaze’s own loyal audience to the point that CEO Tyler Cardon, who should have protected Ms. Watson’s rights and the integrity of the program, asked Ms. Watson to ‘get Mr. Schaffer to stop talking about dicks so much’ on the show.

Finally, Watson told management at The Blaze that she would not participate in the show until something was done to resolve the situation. A few weeks later, after Watson was told that the show was over, management announced that the show was on hiatus. When Watson addressed the issue on social media, Schaffer replied to her tweet saying, “I just got professionally dumped by text,” although Watson had been told that Schaffer had already been informed.

After the show’s demise, Watson says Schaffer retaliated against her on social media, during appearances, and by spreading false rumors in person to other conservative media personalities. Specifically, Watson claims Schaffer told several people that she’d made passes at him and that he turned her down “told Harrison Smith of InfoWars and Scooter Downey (an influential Fox News employee) and Scooter’s wife that Ms. Watson tried to get his wife to divorce him and he had to ‘sue her to keep her quiet.’ He told others that Ms. Watson called him and threatened to go public with information about personal indiscretions.”

Schaffer was fired from The Blaze in September 2022 “for violating company policies and standards” after an “investigation regarding a personal matter.” It was later revealed that the termination came at the conclusion of an investigation into an allegation that he had groped co-worker Sara Gonzales’s breasts, without her consent, at a film premiere.

The alleged incident took place in Dallas on Aug. 26, at the premiere of Uncle Tom II, a conservative film that Schaffer co-produced. Gonzales and Schaffer were seated next to each other in the theater, according to a picture that Schaffer tweeted before the film. As the film played, according to a complaint made to management at The Blaze and described to The Daily Beast, an intoxicated Schaffer began to grope her breasts.

Schlichter told RedState:

I’m sad it’s come to this, but the kind of behavior that’s alleged here is counter to what our movement’s about. Actual traditional values have nothing to do with the abuse of and contempt for women. You can see the kind of damage this can do to a person and to their future. That’s got to be accounted for. My very well-known and respected co-counsel, Jim Pikl, and I are prepared to go in front of 12 jurors and make our case if we have to, and we look forward to vindicating Sydney.

RedState reached out to The Blaze for comment on the matter, but had not heard back as of press time.

Read the full complaint here: