Tubi, the Fox-owned, ad-supported streaming service based in San Francisco, is being sued in San Francisco Superior Court for gender discrimination — the second suit of its kind against the service in two years.
This lawsuit was filed last week by Valentina Montagna, who was hired in 2022 to be a senior product designer at the company. Montagna is seeking class-action certification for her complaint against Tubi and parent company Fox.
Upon joining the company in late 2022, the lawsuit states, Montagna learned that the company’s design team was almost exclusively men — except for one female senior designer, who was promptly let go after Montagna joined Tubi. That boys’ club culture, according to the lawsuit, extended to the type of work she did: Men were favored for key opportunities and high-level projects and brainstorms, including Tubi’s recent rebranding project, which launched last year. The company, the suit adds, has a “longstanding culture of corporate misogyny.”
Montagna also alleges that her manager was “effectively gaslighting her.” After hearing her complaints about overbearing colleagues who micromanaged her, he gathered grievances from other anonymous employees about her being difficult to work with, the suit alleges.
“For the brave women who dare challenge this hostile culture or demand equal pay, the Fox/Tubi playbook is clear: high performing women are suddenly targeted with false and defamatory performance complaints and ultimately the women are relegated to roles where they are set up to feel like failures or simply resign when they find themselves ostracized and without a future at the company,” reads the lawsuit.
By mid-June 2023, Montagna allegedly heard rumors that she was going to be pushed out of her team. She was let go on July 1.
A similar lawsuit in 2023 by former Tubi executive Sarah Ekstrom alleging a “poisonous corporate culture of misogyny,” also filed in San Francisco Superior Court, was ruled in favor of Tubi last year. (Ekstrom appealed the ruling.) It also follows a string of sexual harassment and assault lawsuits at Fox, primarily in its news and sports divisions. Most recently, former Fox Sports reporter Julie Stewart-Binks alleged in January that executive vice president Charlie Dixon sexually assaulted her in 2016; Dixon has since been put on leave.
Tubi, a longtime minor player in the streaming wars, built its name off of free, ad-supported content. Earlier this year, Tubi gained public notoriety when it became the official livestreaming platform of the Super Bowl. The service reported over 97 million users as of the beginning of 2025.
Representatives for Tubi did not respond to a request for comment. Montagna’s attorneys also did not respond to a request for comment.
