Fox News denies it demoted anchor Shepard Smith when he wanted to come …

BY LISA GUTIERREZ
The Kansas City Star

Fox News anchorman Shepard Smith was reportedly ready to come out as gay last year, but his bosses weren’t keen on the plan. Has he since been punished?

GINO DOMENICO | AP
Fox News anchor Shepard Smith was reportedly ready to come out as gay last year, but his bosses weren’t keen on the plan. Has he since been punished? (Photo, Associated Press)
More News
Author: Courtney Love, not Kurt Cobain, wrote note
Efrem Zimbalist Jr., star of ‘The FBI,’ dead at 95
It’s a girl for Kerry Washington and husband
Baltimore landslide swallows cars, video goes viral (with video)
Squirrel goes nuts on Maine teenager taking selfie
Read more Stargazing

In a story today titled “How Fox News Shoved Shepard Smith Back Into The Closet,” – and now vehemently denied by Smith and Fox executives – Gawker’s J.K. Trotter quotes “multiple sources” who say that Smith approached network president Roger Ailes last summer about publicly coming out.

Gawker reports that Smith told Ailes and other colleagues: “It’s time. It’s time.”

A few weeks before that conversation with Ailes, Smith reportedly surprised his colleagues by taking his boyfriend, a 26-year-old Fox producer, to the company picnic held annually over the Fourth of July weekend at Ailes’ home.

Sources tell Gawker that