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Clayton Morris

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Clayton Morris
Close-up on Morris' face
Morris in 2009
Born (1976-12-31) December 31, 1976 (age 47)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Alma materUniversity of Pittsburgh
Occupations
  • Television presenter
  • real estate investor
Spouse
​
​
(m. 2010)​
Children3
Websitewww.claytonmorris.com Edit this at Wikidata

Clayton Morris (born December 31, 1976[2]) is an American YouTuber, real estate investor, and former television news anchor. He hosts the Redacted news podcast on his eponymous YouTube channel and a podcast on Investing in Real Estate.

After co-hosting The Daily Buzz and Good Day Philadelphia on Fox's WTXF-TV, he was a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend on Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2017. He covered consumer technology for Fox and hosted weekly technology segments for Fox News Radio and Fox News. On September 4, 2017, he left Fox News.[3] His real estate ventures have been the subject of several lawsuits, including one filed by the state of Indiana.

Early life

Morris was born in Philadelphia[4] and attended Wilson High School in Spring Township in Berks County (today West Lawn, Pennsylvania), during which time he briefly hosted a comedy show on the local Berks Community Television public access channel.[5] He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1999.[6]

Career

Television, film, and radio

In 2000, Morris appeared in a low-budget thriller film entitled Deception.[6] His television career began when he was a producer for Good Day LA at KTTV, the Fox-owned television station in Los Angeles.[7]

Morris then went on to reporting and anchoring positions at WVVA in Bluefield, West Virginia, and later with the Montana Television Network as a political reporter in the state capital, Helena.[2] He went on to work for The Daily Buzz, a syndicated television morning show, as news correspondent[8] and later host.[9]

In January 2007, Morris was hired by WTXF-TV, the Fox TV station in Philadelphia, to host its morning show, Good Day Philadelphia.[10] He announced in October 2007 that he would leave the station at year's end.[11] Morris then co-hosted Fox & Friends Weekend for Fox News Channel from 2008 to 2017.[12][3]

In 2012, Morris won the seventh annual "New York's Funniest Reporter" contest, which benefits the Humane Society of New York.[13][14]

Financial journalism and real estate ventures

Morris hosts the Investing in Real Estate podcast and Morris Invest YouTube channel, and he developed the Financial Freedom Academy, an online financial planning service.[15] Morris and his wife Natali Morris co-authored a book, How to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 5 Years.[6][15] They also co-host a daily YouTube show on their Redacted channel.[16]

In March 2019, investors filed more than two dozen lawsuits in Indiana and New Jersey, claiming that Morris was running a Ponzi scheme involving the sales of some houses in C- and D-class neighborhoods that were marketed through his investment company, Morris Invest, in Indianapolis. The investors claimed they were sold rental properties which Morris Invest promised to rehabilitate and rent out, earning them rental income. These properties belonged to Bert Whalen. Some investors claimed that they later discovered the properties they received rental income from for several months were boarded up and vacant, and they began receiving city code and country health department violations. Others found they had purchased vacant lots, small shacks or buildings that were falling down. Morris denied responsibility, asserting he referred investors to Whalen and that Whalen was responsible for managing the properties, even though many investors believed they were dealing directly with Morris.[17] In November 2019, Whalen was indicted by a federal grand jury for defrauding investors; the indictment did not name Morris.[18] Whalen pleaded guilty in March 2022.[19]

Morris sued HoltonWiseTV in federal court in October 2019 for $7.2 million, alleging copyright infringement; the case stemmed from HoltonWiseTV's production of a three-hour documentary investigating the alleged involvement of Morris in various real estate scams. In March 2020, Morris lost the suit.[18][20]

In May 2020, the state of Indiana filed a civil lawsuit against Clayton Morris, among others, for violating Indiana's deceptive sales and home loan acts in real estate deals involving more than 150 properties in Marion County.[21]

Personal life

He and his wife, Natali,[22][23] have three children and lived in Maplewood, New Jersey,[24] until 2019. They initially planned to move to Pennsylvania in early 2019[25] but moved to Portugal later that year, with Natali Morris citing the "collective soul challenge" in their business as a reason to leave the country.[26] The family at the time had moved to the country on temporary visas to allow their children to attend schools overseas.[25] The move to Portugal drew criticism from investors suing Morris at the time, who worried that his relocation could make it harder for them to retrieve damages if courts found in their favor.[26]

References

  1. ^ Yu, Justin (October 21, 2010). "The 404 692: Where NDC strikes back (podcast)". CNET. Archived from the original on August 13, 2012.
  2. ^ a b Klein, Michael (January 21, 2007). "For sale: A piece of Rocky's turf". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. p. B2. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ a b Ariens, Chris (September 4, 2017). "Clayton Morris Leaving Fox News". TVNewser. Archived from the original on March 31, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  4. ^ Tornoe, Rob (July 16, 2019). "Ex-Fox News, Fox29 Host Clayton Morris Leaves Country Amid N.J. Lawsuits Over Alleged Ponzi Scheme". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  5. ^ Brudereck, Jason (March 17, 2009). "Staying hip with Twitter". Reading Eagle. p. Berks & Beyond 11. Back in the day, I produced a little - and I do mean little - comedy show on Berks Community Television. It was called "Late Nite with Clayton Morris" and you knew it was hip because we spelled nite incorrectly on purpose and we used words like hip. At the time, Clayton and I were students at Wilson High School.
  6. ^ a b c Evans, Tim; Cook, Tony (March 26, 2019). "Clayton Morris and Bert Whalen: The men behind a wave of real estate investor complaints". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  7. ^ "Clayton Morris". New York's Funniest Reporter. Archived from the original on March 25, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  8. ^ Larson, Dave (March 28, 2003). "There's buzz about the future: WB morning show growing a national audience from its Miamisburg studios". Dayton Daily News. Dayton, Ohio. p. C1, C5. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ^ Thompson, Kevin D. (July 18, 2005). "Morning news with an attitude". The Palm Beach Post. West Palm Beach, Florida. p. 1D, 3D. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ^ Gross, Dan (January 8, 2007). "Fox 29's Engler to consult". Philadelphia Daily News. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. p. 35. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ^ Gross, Dan (October 10, 2007). "Clayton Morris leaving Fox 29". Philadelphia Daily News. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. p. 36. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Sambora's crib: Two Liberty". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. February 26, 2008. p. D02. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Weprin, Alex (September 29, 2012). "Fox News Channel's Clayton Morris Is New York's Funniest Reporter". TVNewser. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  14. ^ Symonds, Alexandria (September 30, 2012). "The News Isn't Funny, but They Are". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  15. ^ a b Goldstein, Matthew (March 25, 2019). "An Ex-Fox News Host Pitched 'Financial Freedom.' His Clients Want Their Money Back". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 8, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  16. ^ "Redacted". YouTube. Archived from the original on June 30, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022.
  17. ^ Cook, Tony; Evans, Tim (March 26, 2019). "Investors say ex-'Fox & Friends' host turned them into unwitting slumlords". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on June 16, 2019.
  18. ^ a b Evans, Tim; Cook, Tony (January 6, 2020). "Ex-Fox & Friends host Clayton Morris seeks $7 million from critic of Indy real estate deals". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
  19. ^ Evans, Tim; Cook, Tony (March 3, 2022). "Indy landlord pleads guilty to federal fraud charge". The Indianapolis Star. p. 5A. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved July 6, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ^ "Morris v. Wise, et al. (1:19-cv-02467), Ohio Northern District Court". PacerMonitor. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved October 15, 2020.
  21. ^ Evans, Tim (May 6, 2020). "Former 'Fox & Friends' host Clayton Morris, partner are accused of deceptive home sales". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on May 9, 2020. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  22. ^ "Video - FoxNews.com". Video.foxnews.com. July 31, 2010. Archived from the original on August 4, 2010. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  23. ^ "Twitter: Natali Del Conte on her baby". Twitter. Archived from the original on July 6, 2022. Retrieved September 29, 2010.
  24. ^ Cardwell, Diane (January 21, 2013). "LEDs Emerge as a Popular 'Green' Lighting". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 19, 2017. 'One day I randomly walked into a Home Depot and thought, LED — when did that happen?' said Clayton Morris, 36, a host of Fox & Friends Weekend, who was buying the bulbs in Vauxhall as part of his project to slowly replace the incandescent light bulbs in his Maplewood home.
  25. ^ a b Atmonavage, Tom (July 17, 2019). "Ex-'Fox and Friends' host moves to Portugal amid fraud accusations from dozens, including several from N.J." NJ.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2022.
  26. ^ a b Cook, Tony; Evans, Tim (July 13, 2019). "Ex-Fox & Friends co-host Clayton Morris leaves country amid fraud allegations, lawsuits". The Indianapolis Star. Archived from the original on July 14, 2019 – via MSN.
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