On Wednesday, HLN’s Ashleigh Banfield escalated her war of words with Babe.net reporter Katie Way, who wrote about one anonymous woman’s allegations of sexual misconduct by actor Aziz Ansari.
On her show Crime & Justice, Banfield shared a letter that she says Way sent to a show producer who asked Way to appear on the program after Banfield slammed Way’s story on Monday, when she claimed it had “chipped away” at the #MeToo movement.
“I want to share this because I think this gives us an insight into the caliber of the person who held that nuclear weapon that was wielded on Ansari’s career. The caliber of this 22-year-old woman,” Banfield said of the letter.
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Banfield then read an excerpt: “Ashleigh, someone who I’m certain no one under the age of 45 has ever heard of … I hope the 500 retweets on a single news writeup made that burgundy lipstick, bad highlights, second-wave feminist has-been really relevant for a little while.”
Banfield said that the reason she shared the letter is because “this is not the way we have this conversation as women or men, we don’t attack — as journalists, let’s be frank — we do not attack people for their age or their highlights or lipstick, because it is the most hypocritical thing a woman who says she supports the women’s movement could do.” Banfield also mentioned in passing that she was brown-haired for a while when she was a war correspondent “interviewing Yasser Arafat and in Afghanistan and Iraq and on the West Bank. Google those places.”
Watch the full segment, and read the letter, below.
Tonight on @CrimeJusticeHLN, @TVAshleigh speaks out on behalf of journalism and women’s rights amid @azizansari‘s accuser sparking #MeToo backlash. https://t.co/QzHHqRHRox
— HLN Public Relations (@HLNPR) January 17, 2018
Here’s the full email the https://t.co/YZ14Jca6FS reporter who wrote the Aziz Ansari story sent when asked to go on HLN with @TVAshleigh. It is really something.https://t.co/qTca5xA9m0 pic.twitter.com/usZBm0KnIr
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) January 17, 2018
To see how the feud all began, watch the video below.
Jan. 17, 2:29 p.m. Updated with full letter.
