Fox Sports host Joy Taylor has carved out an enviable career in sports media, but its trajectory could be changed by a lawsuit full of salacious allegations about her personal life. According to the Daily Mail, former Fox hairstylist Noushin Faraj filed a sexual battery lawsuit against host Skip Bayless and executive Charlie Dixon detailing years of alleged inappropriate behavior, including Bayless’ proposition for her to sleep with him in exchange for $1.5 million. Taylor was named in the suit because Faraj claims that she failed to support her after being alerted to Bayless’ alleged misconduct. According to the filing, Taylor’s response was to “get over it.”
Faraj also claimed that Taylor’s career wasn’t shaped by merit. According to Faraj, Taylor, who was married, leveraged her romantic attachments to Dixon and her current co-host, Emmanuel Acho, to gain preferential treatment. This included Dixon pushing Bayless to give her a role on his show, despite his reluctance. Faraj also alleged that Taylor planned to retaliate by launching untrue sexual harassment claims at Dixon if she didn’t get what she wanted professionally. “She explained that she was also now powerful, and once Mr. Dixon was no longer useful to her, she would follow through on her plan to tell the company that he forced himself on her,” claimed Faraj.
So far, Taylor has yet to deny or confirm Faraj’s claims, but social media is already having a field day. Among the sea of crude commentary about Taylor’s alleged love life are people honing in on the seriousness of Faraj’s allegation concerning Taylor and her career. “Joy Taylor just set women in sports commentary back 20 years man,” tweeted one user on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Way too many talented women out here with great insights but we all know that ‘sleeping to the top’ narrative will be even crazier now.”
However, this lawsuit isn’t all there is to Taylor.
Joy Taylor has thrived in sports media for years
Joy Taylor is the sister of former NFL pro Jason Taylor, who played in the league for over a decade. In fact, it was the retired athlete who inspired her to become a sports analyst. “That’s definitely shaped how I look at sports, how I look at the entertainment business … some of the things that we talk about very flippantly,” she shared on “Way Up with Angela Yee” in March 2024. Having a pro athlete family member also gave her a nuanced understanding of the players she was reporting on. “A lot of times, in music or in sports, we talk about the stars as almost these transactional pieces,” she said. “They don’t really have humanity to them. Like, someone is traded — okay, they’ve been traded to another team … so we’ll move on. But this person has to uproot their family.”
Before getting her start, Taylor, who hosts “Speak” on Fox Sports 1, attended Barry University, where she started her foray into media by way of internships. Over the years, she’s appeared on or co-hosted notable sports-centered shows for Fox, Fuse, and Prime Video, including “Undisputed” (alongside Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe), “Like A Girl,” and “The Joy Taylor Show.” In addition to her on-camera and radio work, Taylor has an active social media presence, where she delivers extra commentary to her fanbase, which includes nearly 767,000 followers on Instagram alone. While her audience on TikTok is but a percentage of the former, she still boasts around 117,000 followers on the video-sharing app. As noted on her website, Taylor also has a philanthropic side, which inspired her to fund a scholarship for communications majors at Barry University.
Time will tell whether this scandal will bring down this decorated sports anchor.
