One week after she filed a lawsuit against her former employer NewsChannel 5, local meteorologist Bree Smith has announced that she will join WSMV’s First Alert Weather team.
Smith on Dec. 29 filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against her previous place of work. During nine years with the organization, according to court documents, she experienced sexual harassment and gender discrimination that led to health problems. Because of this, Smith declined to renew her contract with NewsChannel 5, which is owned by Scripps Media, in January 2025.
Smith started at NewsChannel 5 in 2016. The complaint names and details allegations of sexual harassment by Henry Rothenberg, Smith’s former colleague who also joined the station in 2016 and was later managed by Smith during her tenure.
According to court documents, Rothenberg told Smith in 2017, “You only got the job because of your tits.” When Smith reported the comment to her manager, the manager did not take action. In 2019, Smith reported Rothenberg to human resources for the first time after he told multiple female colleagues, “I won’t hit a woman, but I will hit a bitch.” He also called multiple women “bitch” to their faces. Rothenberg was allegedly reprimanded this time, but hinted that he would find out who submitted the complaint and retaliate, according to court documents.
By 2022, Smith managed a five-person weather team and alleges in court documents that Rothenberg repeatedly interrupted and undermined her in team meetings. That year, according to the suit, he called a co-worker a “bimbo” on a hot microphone and later said he would “push her off a cliff” but for her “floatation devices” (meaning her breasts). Smith filed a complaint to human resources again, also alleging that Rothenberg failed to complete his daily tasks and often pushed them to Smith.
In 2022, Scripps hired an investigator to handle claims made by Smith and a co-worker about Rothenberg. Smith later learned that the investigator, Katie Ford, was a Scripps company employee who ultimately told Smith that her “complacency” in filing complaints against Rothenberg meant the company could not punish him beyond a disciplinary letter.
After that investigation, Smith alleges management retaliated against her, requiring detailed reports of her community engagement work and revoking her responsibility of creating a schedule for her team. The community engagement role was later rescinded too, according to court documents.
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In 2023, Rothenberg was tapped to lead the station’s diversity, equity and inclusion program. That same year he was allegedly “found lying crying on the floor” during another weather event, and Smith was asked to fill in from her family vacation in St. Louis using only her cellphone — an incident she cites in court documents as gender inequity in the workplace.
There were various inequities over her nine-year tenure, the lawsuit says. During Nashville's destructive and deadly March 2020 tornado, Rothenberg did not report to work ("went missing," according to court documents) for two days while the rest of the team worked. Per the suit, Smith was also asked to broadcast 12 hours per day from her basement after she tested positive for COVID-19 in 2021, while Rothenberg was not asked to work. The suit also claims that female employees were required to undergo styling sessions, wherein a stylist criticized and “discussed the women’s bodies inappropriately” — something the male colleagues were reportedly not subject to.
Smith was also a victim of “deepfakes,” sexually explicit images altered to include her face, and the suit states that the station would not take action against the creator of such images. Smith recently supported a state law that made creating these types of images a felony.
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The workplace affected Smith’s health in more ways than one, court documents state. In 2024, she says, she suffered a three-month respiratory illness after deep cleaning of pipes in the studio worsened air quality in the station. The station reportedly denied a request for a $600 HEPA air filter despite Scripps having just completed a “million-dollar” renovation to their building. Smith's doctor ultimately insisted she take short-term disability leave, “due to worsening depression, anxiety, and insomnia,” court documents detail.
“We strongly disagree with the characterizations brought by Bree Smith's legal team and plan to aggressively defend ourselves,” a Scripps spokesperson tells the Scene in a statement. “Prior to her abrupt departure, we were actively working with Bree to continue her tenure with our award-winning team at NewsChannel 5. We were disappointed that those negotiations were not successful."
Smith seeks a jury trial and punitive damages from NewsChannel 5.
