Sean Hannity and Ainsley Earhardt of Fox News have been privately dating “for years,” according to someone close to them.

Both have denied their connection, which was initially revealed by Vanity Fair earlier Thursday.

“Right now, I am focused on raising my daughter, and I am not dating anyone,” Earhardt, a Fox & Friends co-host, stated via a network representative. “As anyone at Fox News will tell you, Sean is a wonderful person, and whomever he chooses to date will be extremely fortunate.”

Hannity told a spokeswoman, “I do not discuss my personal life in public.”

However, a person close to the issue claims that the two had “been seeing each other very secretively for years.”

“He’s very private because he’s very famous and very controversial,” a source told me, “but it’s been an open secret that they have been seeing each other.”

Earhardt has been recording at Hannity’s Long Island, New York, home studio and is renting a house nearby.

“They’re together all the time, but in private… for years,” according to one of the sources, “not just months.”

According to the insider, Earhardt and Hannity have been observed “acting flirty in off-hours” and “getting cozy in the back of” a New York City pub near the Fox News studios.

“And he’s whisked her off on his chopper for a vacation many times,” a source told me.

According to Vanity Fair, Earhardt joined Hannity on his helicopter ride to the wedding of another Fox News personality, Pete Hegseth, in August.

Hannity and his ex-wife, Jill Rhodes, announced this week that they had discreetly split more than a year ago and had been separated for years prior. They have been married for almost 20 years.

On June 3, the former couple declared in a joint statement to PEOPLE, “Sean and Jill are committed to working together for the best interests of their children.” Sean and Jill reached mutually beneficial agreements almost four years ago. They keep a strong bond with their children as parents.”

“Neither will have any further comments and ask for the sake of their children that their privacy be respected,” the statement went on to say.

Hannity and Rhodes, a former journalist, have two children: Sean Patrick, 21, and Merri Kelly, 18.

After filing for divorce in October 2018, Earhardt, 43, finalized her divorce from her ex-husband, Will Proctor, in 2019. The couple married in 2012 and have a 4-year-old daughter named Hayden.

In an October 2019 interview with PEOPLE, she expressed gratitude that her divorce chapter “is closed” and that she and Proctor are cordial and committed to raising their daughter together.

“We’re concentrating on getting ahead and raising our daughter.” We truly wish each other the best and will be friends for the rest of our lives since we share this sweet, gorgeous girl. “She is our number one priority,” Earhardt, who became pregnant with Hayden three months after a miscarriage, said at the time. “She is the light of my life.”

Earhardt went on to say that she and her ex-husband are “co-parenting beautifully.” [Hayden] adores both her mother and father, and we both adore her.”

The TV personality also spoke to people about the difficulties of being a single mother, as well as her opinions on marriage and having additional children if she meets a new partner.

“I’d like to find love again, and I’d like to show Hayden a loving relationship one day.” “However, I’m not sure when that will be,” she explained at the time. “I know that God will put the right man in my life if that’s his will, and he’ll do it in his time.”