MSNBC “HardBall” news show anchor Chris Matthews announced his retirement Monday night, after a female journalist, Laura Bassett, told GQ last week that Matthews, 74, made her “uncomfortable” before her appearance on a 2016 segment of Hardball. Bassett said Matthews “inappropriately flirted with me in the makeup room.”
“Right before I had to go on his show and talk about sexual-assault allegations against Donald Trump, Matthews looked over at me in the makeup chair next to him and said, ‘Why haven’t I fallen in love with you yet?'” Bassett said.
She added, “When I laughed nervously and said nothing, he followed up to the makeup artist. ‘Keep putting makeup on her, I’ll fall in love with her.'”
Bassett also talked about another incident regarding Chris Matthews, when he complimented the red dress she was wearing and asked if she was going out following their segment. When Bassett answered she didn’t know, she said Matthews “said—again to the makeup artist ‘Make sure you wipe this off her face after the show. We don’t make her up so some guy at a bar can look at her like this.'”
Laura Bassett decided to come forward with her accusations against Matthews after he had an exchange with Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, live on air, about allegations of sexism against presidential Candidate Mike Bloomberg when Warren said Bloomberg told a pregnant employee in 1995 to “kill it”. Bloomberg denied the accusation.
Matthews was reprimanded by MSNBC in 1999 following an incident where he made inappropriate comments about a female employee, and in 2016, Matthews gave an apology after asking where his “Bill Cosby pill” was before an interview with Hillary Clinton, who at the time was a presidential candidate.
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