A legal battle that once shook Fox News to its core has come to a tragic close. Jennifer Eckhart, the producer whose 2020 lawsuit accused former anchor Ed Henry of rape, has died by suicide at her home in Florida.
Authorities confirmed the 36-year-old’s death occurred at her residence in Hobe Sound over the weekend. A spokesperson for the Martin County Sheriff’s office verified the death to the Daily Mail on Monday.
TMZ broke the story first, citing law enforcement sources who said Eckhart died by suicide. According to an incident report obtained by the outlet, it was Eckhart’s own mother who made the grim discovery.
The mother arrived at the residence Monday morning and located her daughter’s body in the master bedroom bathtub. A knife was found near the scene, sources told TMZ.
Paramedics and officers responded to the home, and Eckhart was pronounced dead at 11:57 a.m. Authorities have not released additional details surrounding the circumstances of her death.
Eckhart’s name became widely known in 2020, when she filed a civil suit against Henry alleging he raped her during a 2017 encounter at a hotel in Manhattan. The allegation set off a chain reaction inside Fox News.
Network executives suspended Henry the same day the lawsuit was filed. Within a week, he had been terminated following an internal investigation conducted by outside counsel.
At the time, Fox News issued a statement asserting the company “took swift action as soon as it learned of Ms. Eckhart’s claims,” and confirmed Henry’s employment ended as of July 1, 2020.
Henry has never wavered in his denial. Now 55 and serving as the top anchor at Newsmax, he has consistently characterized his relationship with Eckhart as entirely consensual.
Court documents painted a disturbing picture of the alleged abuse, describing “sadistic acts on her without her consent that left her injured, bruised and battered with bloody wrists.”
The filing also included screenshots of text messages in which Henry allegedly referred to Eckhart as “my little whore” and demanded “more anal” sex.
Beyond the rape allegation, the lawsuit leveled additional charges against Henry, including sex trafficking, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and fostering a hostile workplace.
After nearly five years of litigation, the case was resolved through settlement in June 2025 — just one day before it was due to go to trial. The financial terms were never made public and remain unknown to this day.
Eckhart didn’t stop at suing Henry individually.
She also pursued a separate appeal aimed squarely at Fox News, arguing the network had known about Henry’s misconduct and failed to intervene on her behalf.
That effort collapsed in March, when a three-judge panel on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against her.
The judges concluded Eckhart had not shown sufficient evidence that “Fox knew of Henry’s conduct towards her.” They also found she failed to prove the network’s response to her complaint fell short of “appropriate corrective action.”
The dismissed appeal had invoked a New York City civil rights statute designed to shield employees from workplace harassment, discrimination and retaliation.
In the years following her departure from Fox News, Eckhart reinvented her career as a podcast host. She launched “REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart” in 2021, framing the show around conversations that explored what she called the human condition.
Speaking with Variety when the podcast debuted, Eckhart reflected on the universal appeal of starting over. “Reinventing yourself, whether personally or professionally, is something so many of us can relate to,” she said.
She expressed a broader hope for her audience in that same interview.
“My hope is that this show will inspire anyone who wants to reinvent themselves to take that first step… to let every person out there know it is never too late to reinvent your life,” Eckhart said.
Podcasting also gave her a sense of independence she said she hadn’t felt in cable news.
“I did not have an immediate desire to run back into the arms of corporate media… I’m not beholden to any investor or network,” she told Variety.
Over the years, her guest list grew to include rapper Sean Paul, wrestling star Chris Jericho, and Gretchen Carlson — another former Fox News personality who made headlines with her own sexual harassment lawsuit against ex-chairman Roger Ailes in 2016.
That case settled for $20 million within two weeks, accompanied by a formal apology from the network.
Eckhart uploaded her final podcast episode in March, not long after the appellate court shut down her case against Fox News.
Before her time at Fox, Eckhart built her broadcasting career in Florida, where she was born and raised. She worked as an ESPN Radio correspondent and later anchored for WUFT-TV, a PBS affiliate in Gainesville.
More than a year after her lawsuit against Henry quietly settled, the details of that resolution remain confidential.
