WARNING: This article contains sexually explicit language, discretion is advised.
CTV has suspended Queen’s Park reporter Paul Bliss following explict allegations of sexual misconduct made by a former employee.
“Allegations have been made against a CTV news reporter,” said Bell Media spokesperson Scott Henderson in a statement. “We take this very seriously and as a result have suspended Paul Bliss until an investigation is complete.”
Global News has reached out to Bliss for comment but has not yet received a response.
Bridget Brown, former CTV journalist, is alleging she was subjected to sexual misconduct by an “award-winning CTV reporter and anchor” while working in Toronto.
Brown made the allegations in a blog post published Friday afternoon. She does not name Paul Bliss directly. She writes that the CTV reporter kissed her without her consent, attempted to forcibly initiate “oral sex,” and then masturbated in front of her.
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Brown confirmed the allegations in an interview with Global News.
“This was a horrible experience and it affected me my whole career,” she said. “It was an inappropriate sexual approach to me from someone who had a lot more power in the workplace than I did.”
Brown, who stopped working at CTV Calgary in 2015, said the incident happened in April 2006 shortly after she landed a freelance job with Canada AM, CTV’s now defunct national morning show.
Brown said she had met Bliss previously, so when she joined Canada AM she contacted the reporter for coffee but he instead offered to meet with him at a CTV “satellite office” in Toronto where she was given a tour of the “storied building.”
“We ended the tour back in his office where his newscast was still on, so we watched some of it and he told me about his coworkers,” Brown writes. “It all seemed very designed to help me get to know people in the industry.”
“Until he started kissing me.”
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Brown said he kissed her without her consent and then he attempted to initiate oral sex.
“I didn’t want to be kissing him at all, but suddenly felt very worried about offending him,” she writes. “Then he started pushing on the top of my head.”
“I’m not giving you a blow job in your office,” I said bluntly, as is my style.” Brown writes.
After attempting to leave the office, she alleges he then exposed his penis.
“It was like being cornered by a flasher on the subway,” she said. “I stood frozen like a statue as this man proceeded to ejaculate in front of me right onto the fancy carpet of his office.”
Brown said she didn’t initially report the incident to her managers for fear of losing her job.
“I felt really alone. And I felt my employment was very tenuous, and I didn’t have the personal agency to be able to even just debrief about what happened,” she told Global News.
Brown tweeted Friday evening that she agrees she should have reported the incident at the time, and that she “wouldn’t handle the situation the same way today.”
She added that the dearth of #MeToo stories emerging from Canada prompted her to share her story “in the hopes of facilitating some dialogue.”
Brown has not filed a criminal complaint based on the incident, and she admits she still follows the journalist on Twitter.
The Calgary woman said she published her story after watching media reports involving the sexual misconduct allegations against former Ontario PC leader Patrick Brown – first reported by CTV News – and decided to share her story following allegations of sexual misconduct in the U.S. media industry.
“I knew for a fact that sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace were happening here in Canada,” she told Global News. “I wanted to speak out because I hoped it would encourage other women who have experienced something like this also be able to share their truth. Hopefully, if nothing else, perpetrators get the message that if they’re behaving inappropriately in the workplace, people are going to find out and there are going to be consequences.”