Gretchen Carlson

At 58 years old, Gretchen Carlson has this physical status:

Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson (born June 21, 1966) is an American television commentator, reporter, and author.

In 2017, she was named one of Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Carlson was the 1989 Miss America while representing Minnesota in her home state.

She graduated from Stanford University with honors before embarking on a television career.

She began as a reporter and reporter for several local television affiliates before joining CBS News in 2000 as a reporter and co-host of the Saturday edition of The Early Show.

She joined Fox News Channel in 2005 and became the co-co-host of the morning show Fox & Friends with Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade.

Gretchen Carlson's retirement from Fox & Friends in 2013 was announced in 2013 and the company introduced The Real Story with her Gretchen Carlson right away.

Getting Real, Viking's autobiography, was released in 2015.

Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back was her second book published by Hachette in 2017 and became a New York Times Bestseller. Fox News' contract came to an end on June 23, 2016.

She filed a lawsuit against then Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes alleging sexual assault on July 6.

Hundreds of other women came forward to accuse Ailes of bullying, and Ailes was eventually forced to resign under pressure.

Carlson and 21st Century Fox settled the case for $20 million in September 2016.

Early life and education

Carlson was born in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, the granddaughter of Karen Barbara (née Hyllengren) and Lee Roy Carlson, one of four children. Her father studied at Gustavus Adolphus College and later became the sole proprietor/operator of Main Motor Sales, a 1919 auto dealership that was started by her grandfather. Carlson, whose grandfather was a minister, is of Swedish descent from both parents. Michele Bachmann, the future Republican congresswoman who ran for president, was one of her childhood babysitters.

Carlson's hometown of Anoka, Minnesota, is known as the "Halloween Capital of the World" and hosts the state's second largest parade, which was attended in 2004 by Carlson as grand marshal.

Carlson was a violinist who appeared on radio and television in her youth. She studied with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City and with Mary West of the MacPhail Center For Music in Minneapolis. Carlson appeared in numerous exhibitions, including the Stulberg International String Teachers Association, where she won second place in 1981, Joshua Bell, a world famous concert violinist, and the Friends of Minnesota Orchestra, where she won second place in 1979 as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra at just 13 years old. She appeared at Aspen Music Festival from 1976 to 1983, and she appeared on the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony from 1980 to 1984. Carlson graduated from Anoka High School District 11, where she was the 1984 valedictorian.

Carlson was crowned Miss Minnesota in June 1988 and then Miss America 1989 on September 10, 1988. She was the first classical violinist to win those titles. Following Carlson's victory in Miss America, she was invited to visit President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office. During her year of service, she made numerous television appearances, including on The David Letterman Show, where he jokingly asked her out on a date. After Carlson's appearance as a newscaster in a sketch about Bloopers and Practical Jokes with Ed McMahon and Dick Clark, television agents began calling, eventually launching her career in broadcast television.

Carlson earned her degree from Stanford University in 1990, where she concentrated on organizational behavior. She spent a year at Oxford University investigating Virginia Woolf's work. She was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. Carlson intended to attend law school after Stanford and passed the LSAT exam, but instead concentrated on a career in broadcast journalism.

Carlson was inducted into the Anoka High School Hall of Fame in September 2011.

Personal life

Carlson married sports agent Casey Close on October 4, 1997. They and their two children live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

She announced on Fox & Friends on June 9, 2009, and reiterated on Glenn Beck's Fox News program that her parents' dealership had been chosen for closure as part of the GM reorganization and bankruptcy. The Minneapolis Star Tribune announced this year that "It took an act of congress, a national TV appeal, and perhaps a little bit of history on the owners' side." However, Main Motor, the Anoka car dealership that Lee and Karen Carlson's family has owned for 91 years, will keep its General Motors dealership."

Carlson is an ambassador for the arts, who grew up with the violinist's experience. Both of Carlson's children are pianists. Carlson's daughter's atticus began with a solo piano recital in Greenwich, Connecticut, to raise money for charity. Kaia's fundraiser, which was held shortly after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, raised $5,000 for an animal sanctuary in honor of victim Catherine Violet Hubbard. She currently serves on the teen advisory board.

Carlson, a string instrumentist in her youth, adored cellist Yo-Yo Ma, whom she later encountered while speaking at the 2019 Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco.

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Career

Carlson, who first appeared on Miss America in 1989, has earned a role on WRIC-TV, an ABC-affiliated television station in Richmond, Virginia, as a co-anchor and political commentator. At the time, Style Weekly called it a triumph for WRIC-TV. She joined WCPO-TV, serving Cincinnati, Ohio, as a media commentator, and spent two years at the station. Carlson and her colleague Denise Dufala became the first women to co-anchor a primetime major-market newscast in Cleveland, Ohio.

Carlson spent her time in Cleveland as a weekend anchor and reporter for KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, from 1998 to 2000.

Carlson performed her own interpretation of "The Spangled Banner" on the violin for Major League Baseball games in Dallas and Cleveland.

Carlson joined the national television industry as a national correspondent in 2000, and she and Russ Mitchell became co-anchors on CBS' Saturday edition in 2002. During her time on the network, Carlson anchored the CBS Evening News weekend edition.

Carlson covered a wide variety of cultural events during her early career as a reporter, including the Oklahoma City bombing and the O. J. Simpson murder case while at WOIO in Cleveland, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and various G7 Summit meetings when at CBS News.

Carlson first appeared on Fox & Friends as a weekend substitute host in 2006. Following a revolving of anchors, which included E.D., on September 25, 2006, a change of anchors was announced. Carlson became the anchor of Fox News Live in the ten a.m. hour. For almost eight years, she co-hosted with Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade. When on-air colleagues made an offended comment about women in the workplace in 2012, she walked off the Fox & Friends set. Carlson admitted on Brian Kilmeade's radio show that Fox News female anchors were not allowed to wear pants. Carlson was known for doing push-ups when military personnel were on the show, despite dress code restrictions. Carlson appeared on Fox and Friends in 2014 and then again in 2015 to promote her book Getting Real.

Carlson joined Fox & Friends in September 2013 to host The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, the first day of the season, taking part of Megyn Kelly's return to primetime. She began covering news that promoted women's rights, including a piece on Netflix's House of Cards' Robin Wright, who earned the same salary as Kevin Spacey. Carlson became the first cable news television anchor to go on air without makeup in 2013. She came out in favour of the assault weapons ban just three weeks before she was fired.

During her time at Fox News Carlson, she covered many international events, including first and second inaugurations of Barack Obama, the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, and the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention in 2008 and 2012.

Carlson was elected chairwoman of the Miss America Organization, a volunteer position, on January 1, 2018. Carlson's first major decision after being hired as chairwoman was to ban the swimsuit competition from the pageant, following a unanimous vote from the board of directors. Carlson's mission was to turn the pageant into "Miss America 2.0," where the swimsuit competitions would be replaced by on-stage interviews. In light of the Me Too campaign, the move was intended to shift attention from appearances to accomplishments. The change in opinion was largely internal within the company.

The Miss America brand would return to NBC in early 2019. Carlson resigned from Chairwoman of the Board in June 2019 after securing the network contract.

Carlson signed a first-look development contract with A&E Networks in April 2018, under which she will host three documentary specials on A&E Networks, such as Lifetime. Gretchen Carlson: Breaking the Silence explores the universal story of workplace sexual assault, and premiered on Lifetime on January 14, 2019.

Carlson served as a correspondent on an episode of the television documentary series America Divided, which airs on Epix. Carlson hosted "Washington's War on Women," a satisfaction with sexual assault on Capitol Hill.

In 2018, Carlson hosted Live PD Presents: Women on Patrol and Escaping Polygamy on Lifetime. Carlson would produce two hourlong documentaries from the "Beyond the Headlines" franchise in August 2019. Escaping the NXIVM Cult: A Mother's Struggle to Save Her Daughter and the second The College Admissions Scandal

Carlson wrote an opinion column in The New York Times in December 2019, saying that she would not disclose what happened to her as a result of a nondisclosure deal, but that it was her desire to do so.

Carlson announced a new television contract with Blumhouse Productions in January 2020 to produce a new interview style film.

Carlson will appear on PEOPLE in October 2020 (the TV Show) As a special contributor, I'm honored. Carlson's new program on PeopleTV would highlight everyday American heroes.

Carlson and her life story were included on PBS' new website Find Your Roots in April 2021 in order to learn more about her family history. It was revealed that she is a full-blood Scandinavian-American and that a significant portion of her family is Swedish-born in Smland, Sweden.

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