Radio legend Delilah says she was once fired from a Seattle country station after reporting sexual harassment and racist treatment while dating a Black man early in her broadcasting career.
Speaking on the Dumb Blonde podcast this week, Delilah described working at now-defunct Seattle country station KAYO in the early 1980s at age 21, where she said a news director repeatedly targeted her with unwanted attention.
“I just kept ignoring him,” Delilah, now 66, recalled.
She recounted arriving at work one day to find a large banner hanging across the studio glass reading, “Delilah, you’re a fabulous [expletive].” According to Delilah, the message had been written in black marker on ticker tape paper.
A few days later, she said, someone taped a cartoon from Playboy magazine to the outside of her locker.
“That’s freaking sexual harassment at this point,” podcast host Bunnie XO responded during the interview.
Delilah also described racist backlash after attending a company event with her boyfriend at the time, who she said was Black and worked as a news director at another radio station.
“We showed up at a company event together and all hell broke loose,” Delilah recalled.
According to Delilah, she was told she could no longer bring him to station functions because “nobody who listens to country music wants to see a blonde woman with the N word.”
Delilah said she eventually gathered the banner, cartoon, and other evidence before bringing her concerns to management and threatening legal action.
“I said, ‘I’m going to hire a lawyer. This is not okay,’” she said.
Delilah claimed her boss initially appeared supportive and told her he was “appalled” and “disgusted” by what had happened. But about a week later, she said she was fired.
“Destroyed the cartoon, destroyed the poster, gone,” Delilah said while discussing the evidence she had turned over to management.
The longtime radio host reflected on the experience as part of a broader conversation about inequality and discrimination that still exists today.
“There’s a lot of things that are not fair and not okay and they still happen every day,” she said.
Delilah also pointed to gender pay disparities and challenges facing children in foster care, saying, “Less than 5% of kids who are in foster care will ever be adopted.”
Delilah became one of the most recognizable voices in American radio through her nationally syndicated nighttime dedication show, which blends music, listener stories, and relationship advice.
Over the course of her decades-long career, she has earned multiple Marconi Awards and has been inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. Her show has aired on hundreds of stations nationwide and reaches millions of listeners each week.
The former KAYO was one of Seattle’s best-known country radio stations during the 1970s and 1980s before eventually changing formats and call letters.
