A former Fox News producer has died by suicide at her Florida home, six years after suing one of the network’s former anchors and accusing him of rape.

Jennifer Eckhart, 36, was found at her home in Hobe Sound on Saturday, a Martin County Sheriff’s office spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Mail on Monday. 

Law enforcement sources told TMZ the producer-turned-podcaster took her own life.

An incident report obtained by the outlet revealed Eckhart’s own mother found her body. She arrived at the home Monday morning to find her daughter in the bathtub of her master bedroom with a knife nearby, sources told the outlet.

Eckhart was reportedly pronounced dead at 11.57am, after officers arrived.

No other information was immediately made available. TMZ was the first to report on Eckharts’s death.

The late journalist previously accused former Fox anchor Ed Henry of raping her in a since-settled lawsuit filed in 2020. An outside probe launched by the network directly after led to the latter’s firing.

Eckhart accused Henry of restraining and raping her during an encounter in a Manhattan hotel in 2017. The suit was settled in June 2025, just a day before it was set to finally go to court.

Former Fox News producer Jennifer Eckhart has died by suicide, TMZ reported on Monday. The 36-year-old was found dead Saturday in her Florida home

 Eckhart previously accused then-Fox anchor Ed Henry of raping her in a 2020 lawsuit. The suit was settled last year

Henry, 55, now works for Newsmax as the network’s head anchor and has long maintained that all of his interactions with Eckhart were consensual.

Eckhart, meanwhile, launched a podcast in 2021. She referred to the move as her ‘second act’ during an August 2021 interview with Variety. In it, she described the project’s premise – interviews with a range of figures that touched on the human condition.

‘Reinventing yourself, whether personally or professionally, is something so many of us can relate to,’ she said. The podcast was called REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart.

‘My hope is that this show will inspire anyone who wants to reinvent themselves to take that first step… to let every person out there know it is never too late to reinvent your life,’ she told the outlet at the time.   

The last recorded episode was uploaded in March, weeks after a federal appeals court struck down a follow-up filing from Eckhart that targeted Fox News rather than Henry.

It echoed a tossed portion of the original lawsuit that alleged the network knew about Henry’s behavior and failed to properly discipline him and protect her.  

A trio of 2nd Circuit judges, however, ruled against Eckhart, saying the former producer did not do enough to prove ‘Fox knew of Henry’s conduct towards her.’ 

Eckhart had been operating a podcast in the years since she left Fox, though the most recent episode came in March

Henry currently works for Newsmax as the network’s head anchor. He is seen here with then-wife Shirley Hung in 2014. The pair divorced in 2024

Eckhart was also not able to prove that execs only took the ‘appropriate corrective action’ against Henry after her suit was filed in June 2020 to get ahead of the claims.

The appeal unsuccessfully sought to hold the network accountable for violating a New York City civil rights law that bars employees from being harassed, discriminated against and retaliated upon by their employers.

The circumstances surrounding the earlier settlement, meanwhile, remain unknown.

Eckhart accused Henry of performing ‘sadistic acts on her without her consent that left her injured, bruised and battered with bloody wrists’ in the original suit. 

She also attached screenshots of texts from the then-America’s Newsroom anchor, where he called her ‘my little whore’ and demanded ‘more anal’ sex, according to the complaint.

The suit also accused Henry of sex trafficking, sexual harassment, gender discrimination and subjecting her to a hostile work environment. Henry was fired the day after it was filed, despite it never getting to court.

Eckhart was born and raised in Miami, and previously worked as an ESPN Radio correspondent and anchor for WUFT-TV in Gainesville. She most recently worked as a producer for Fox Business while also appearing on Fox News and Fox Nation

As the suit made its way through the federal court system for five years, Eckhart worked on her podcast. She expressed hope to Variety that the medium would allow her more freedom than her cable news career.

‘I did not have an immediate desire to run back into the arms of corporate media… I’m not beholden to any investor or network,’ she said.

Eckhart was born and raised in Miami, and previously worked as an ESPN Radio correspondent and anchor for WUFT-TV, a local PBS affiliate in Gainesville.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or actions, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 988.