Gretchen Carlson is an anchor and reporter at Fox News Channel and is the co-host of the popular morning show Fox & Friends. She also contributes regularly to the Thursday night show The O'Reilly Factor. Gretchen Elizabeth Carlson was born on June 21, 1966, in Anoka, Minnesota. She was raised in a Lutheran family of Swedish descent. Her mother is Karen Barbara, and her father is Lee Roy Carlson. She is one of four children; she has two brothers and one sister.
Her father worked at a car dealership which he owned with her uncle. Carlson attended Anoka High School. She was an accomplished violinist and won numerous local and national competitions. Carlson even performed as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra as an eighth-grader and was the concertmistress for the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony. She graduated from Anoka High School as their valedictorian in 1984.
After graduating high school, Carlson attended the Aspen Music Festival. In 1988, she won the title of Miss Minnesota and the Miss America title, making her the third woman from Minnesota to receive the award. In 1990, Carlson graduated magna cum laude from Stanford University with a degree in Sociology. She then went on to further her education abroad at Oxford University.
Carlson began her career in journalism at WRIC-TV, an affiliate of ABC in Richmond, Virginia, where she worked as a political reporter. She then went on to work as a reporter and anchor at WCPO-TV, KXAS-TV, and WOIO-TV before joining CBS as a news correspondent. Carlson gained recognition as an American television commentator and author during her time at CBS, where she served as host of the CBS Saturday Early Show. At the peak of her career, Carlson moved to FOX News Channel in 2006, where she worked as a substitute anchor on weekends. After some time as a substitute anchor at FOX, Carlson became co-anchor of the show Fox & Friends, co-hosted with Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade for several years. In September 2013, Carlson left Fox & Friends after seven years to become an anchor for The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson, an hour-long daytime program that focused on current affairs. Despite a seemingly smooth collaboration between Carlson and the Fox News network, Carlson suddenly announced the termination of her contract on her Twitter account.
On the same day she terminated her contract, Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, claiming he had fired her from her program for refusing to comply with his sexual advances. She filed the case against Ailes in the Superior Court of New Jersey. Carlson made her complaint widely known by uploading a video on her social media profiles in support of sexual harassment victims, which eventually became part of the #MeToo movement, a global campaign to bring justice to sexual assault victims. After Carlson came forward about Ailes, dozens of other women also stepped forward to accuse the TV executive of harassment. In the face of overwhelming criticism and pressure, Ailes eventually resigned.
| Marital Status: | Married |
| Profession: | Journalism |
| Husband: | Casey Close |
| Salary: | $800 thousand annually with a net worth of $ 2.5 million |
| Children: | 2 children |
| Date of Birth: | June 21, 1966 |
| Nationality: | USA |
| Employer: | FOX News |
| Height: | 1.6 m |
| Ethnicity: | Swedish |
| Net Worth: | Around $2.5 Million Dollars |
| Boyfriend: | Not Yet |
| Alma Mater: | University of Oxford, Stanford University |
| Birth Sign: | Cancer |
| Birth Place: | Anoka, MN |
| Marriage Date: | 04-10-1997 |
| Birth Date: | 21 Jun, 1966 |
| Age: | 53 yrs |
| Occupations: | Television presenter Model Journalist |
| Citizenship: | United States of America |
| Birth Place: | Anoka |
| residence: | Greenwich |
| Education: | Stanford University |
| Gender: | Female |
| Description: | American journalist |
| Twitter Id: | GretchenCarlson |
| Spouse: | Casey Close [M. 1997] |
| Net Worth 2021: | 18 million |
