Popular Nashville meteorologist Bree Smith will start at WSMV Channel 4 news the week of Jan. 12, two weeks after filing a gender discrimination lawsuit against NewsChannel 5, her TV home for nine years.
“We are thrilled to add Bree to the First Alert Weather team,” Jasmine Hardin, WSMV’s General Manager and Regional Vice President, said in a statement.
“Bree’s authenticity and relatability make her a favorite with viewers. Her passion for our community and the people that live here make her a great fit for the WSMV team.”
A 2026 headshot of Bree Smith, meteorologist at WSMV Channel 4
In a statement, Smith said, “I am delighted and deeply grateful for the opportunity to join WSMV and their dedicated First Alert Weather team.
“Middle Tennessee is my home, I care deeply about this community and take the responsibility of walking folks safely through all the twists and turns Mother Nature throws our way very seriously.”
This is the second former NewsChannel 5 news personality WSMV has hired in the last few weeks. Channel 4 announced Dec. 14 that former WTVF news anchor Hunter Hoagland — who worked for two years at NewsChannel 5 before leaving there in January 2025 — is joining WSMV.
Smith and Hoagland both left NewsChannel 5 around the same time after failing to come to terms on new contracts with WTVF.
A 2025 headshot of WSMV-Channel 4 news anchor Hunter Hoagland, who worked at NewsChannel 5 in 2023 and 2024.
Smith claimed in a lawsuit filed Dec. 29 against NewsChannel 5 that she faced “sexist verbal abuse” at the station from current weather forecaster Henry Rothenberg.
Rothenberg, who joined NewsChannel 5 in 2016, has not responded to email, Facebook, text or phone messages left by Tennessean reporters.
A spokesman for NewsChannel 5’s corporate owner sent a statement in response:
“We strongly disagree with the characterizations brought by Bree Smith’s legal team and plan to aggressively defend ourselves. 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.
“The leadership of NewsChannel 5 and our parent company, Scripps, work hard to create a positive work environment for our employees. We take very seriously any claims of mistreatment and address them promptly. Any concerns brought to us by Bree were investigated thoroughly. It is unfortunate that we must now address these matters publicly. The facts will show the station took appropriate action and Bree’s lawsuit against the station is without merit.”
NewsChannel 5 meteorologist Henry Rothenberg gives a weather forecast on Dec. 22, 2025, on WTVF in Nashville.
Smith alleged that Rothenberg told her in 2017, “You only got your job because of your [breasts],” her lawyers John Spragens and David Kieley wrote in the suit filed in U.S. District Court against NewsChannel 5 and its Cincinnati-based owner, The E.W. Scripps Company.
The suit also alleges that in 2019, Rothenberg called multiple women a derogatory, sexist slur to their faces, “both privately and in the presence of other industry professionals.”
Smith also claims in the lawsuit that station managers retaliated against her for filing complaints against Rothenberg. She said after filing complaints, supervisors took away her responsibilities for community engagement and for scheduling for the station’s meteorologists. And she was required to submit a weekly email on “the work she had completed.”
Smith, 44, didn’t immediately respond to a Tennessean reporter’s request for comment outside of her statement on her move to Channel 4.
On Channel 4, Smith will do weather forecasts for the afternoon and early evening newscasts, appearing with and rotating with WSMV chief meteorologist Lisa Spencer, who celebrated 25 years at Channel 4 last month.
WSMV chief meteorologist Lisa Spencer at Centennial Park in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024.
As part of a lineup shuffle, Spencer will come off the 10 p.m. newscasts, to be replaced by Channel 4 meteorologist Dan Thomas, who has been at the station for 19 years.
It appears the two NewsChannel 5 alumni will be reunited for at least one of the WSMV newscasts, at 4 p.m., when Hoagland will anchor and Smith will provide weather forecasts. Hoagland said he is thrilled to be working with Smith again.
“She’s an incredibly talented meteorologist and an even better teammate,” Hoagland texted a Tennessean reporter, “and I can’t wait for our viewers to see the energy and expertise she brings to this station.”
Smith had made her share of headlines in the past 12 months.
In the spring, Smith revealed that unknown people online had been impersonating her and posting pictures of her face on semi-nude bodies. She became an advocate for new state laws to prohibit “intimate” deep fakes, legislation that passed in April.
In her lawsuit, Smith alleged that station managers “refused to intervene when [she] was harassed with ‘deepfake images,'” adding that was “the last straw” that pushed her to leave NewsChannel 5 “because she could no longer withstand the harmful effects of her work environment….”
Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Bree Smith heads to WSMV Channel 4 after Nashville lawsuit