Jennifer Eckhart, who was earlier a producer with Fox News and later a podcast host and advocate for trauma survivors, has passed away at the age of 36 years. She was found dead at her residence in Florida on September 19, 2026.
According to the police, the cause of death has been ruled as suicide. The tragic event occurred years after her famous court lawsuit against former Fox News anchor Ed Henry.
Jennifer Eckhart, Ex-Fox Producer Who Fought Ed Henry in Court, Dies by Suicide at 36
Jennifer Eckhart, a former associate producer at Fox News, has died by suicide at 36. According to TMZ, a rep for the Martin County Medical Examiner's Office in Florida confirmed her death, and law enforcement sources say it has been ruled a suicide. Police were seen outside her Hope Sound home over the weekend, where she was found dead.
Eckhart's name became widely known in 2020, when she filed a lawsuit accusing former Fox News anchor Ed Henry of rape. It became one of the most closely watched legal disputes to come out of Fox News in years, and it stayed with her long after the initial headlines faded. Her death closes a chapter that started publicly five years ago but had actually been building since much earlier in her career.
Fox Business Producer Jennifer Eckhart, Known for Her Landmark Lawsuit Against Ed Henry
According to the complaint Eckhart filed, Henry sexually assaulted her on Fox property and raped her at a hotel the network regularly used for visiting employees. She said he handcuffed her and took photos of her beforehand, something she believed he later used to keep her quiet. A separate incident from 2015 described her being forced into a sexual act at Fox's New York offices, after which she said she left the building in shock.
Henry denied the allegations from the start. His legal team argued the relationship was consensual, pointing to flirtatious text messages Eckhart had sent him, including one telling him to come and get it, as evidence she pursued him rather than the other way around. Eckhart pushed back hard, saying publicly that no message, however it reads, excuses rape and that some of the photos submitted in Henry's court filing weren't even of her.
In 2021, a federal judge ruled that both Henry and Fox News would have to face the lawsuit. That decision allowed Eckhart to pursue claims that Henry engaged in sex trafficking and violated New York's revenge porn law by posting what she said were nude images of her in court records, and it opened the door for her to argue Fox knew, or should have known, about his behavior. The case was amended again in 2022 to include claims under New York's Adult Survivors Act, a temporary law that let survivors bring older sexual assault claims that would normally have expired by then. That alone shows how long the fight had already stretched.
Eckhart eventually settled her claims against Henry in 2024, just before the case was set to head to trial. Her separate claims against Fox News itself weren't as successful. Those were dismissed, and a federal appeals court upheld that decision in April 2025, ruling Fox didn't know about Henry's alleged conduct before she came forward. Throughout the case, Fox maintained it had acted appropriately, with a spokeswoman telling USA Today there were no sexual harassment claims against Henry at the network before Eckhart's claim on June 25, 2020. Her legal team disputed that timeline, arguing executives had known well before that date.
Jennifer Eckhart: The Fox Business Producer Who Took On Ed Henry in Court
Before any of this, Eckhart was simply a young producer working her way up at a major news network. She joined Fox News in January 2013 and stayed until June 2020, spending seven and a half years there. She worked as a producer on Countdown to the Closing Bell and also covered entertainment business news, making regular appearances on Fox News Radio and Fox Nation. Producing at a network like Fox isn't glamorous work. It's early mornings, constant deadlines, and being the person who makes sure a segment runs on time, and she spent years doing that job well before her name ever appeared in a lawsuit.
Even after the case settled, Eckhart didn't step back from the conversation. When Henry continued defending himself publicly, she responded directly, telling one reporter that someone should educate him on the difference between the sound of a victim and the sound of justice and that he was the last person qualified to say what a victim sounds like. Inside Fox News, and among people who followed the case closely, she was known as someone who didn't back down, even as the legal process dragged on for years. Whatever anyone thinks about how the case ultimately resolved, she stayed with it from start to finish, which is more than a lot of people in her position would have done.