AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Tucker Carlson, the top-rated host at Fox News, was ousted on Monday from the network that turned him into one of the most influential voices in America.
The abrupt departure of the controversial prime time figure comes a week after Fox News reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of former President Donald Trump’s false 2020 election claims. That bombshell settlement — the biggest media payout in history — prompted many to question if Fox Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch would make major changes at the network.
Now, Murdoch is making at least one.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” the network said in a statement Monday morning. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor. Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st.”
Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox Corporation chief Lachlan Murdoch made the decision to fire Carlson on Friday night, Mediaite has learned. He was informed Monday morning, and was stunned by the news.
The decision, we should note, was not mutual. “It was a firing,” one source told Mediaite’s Sarah Rumpf.
Carlson found himself embroiled in serious controversy throughout his time at Fox News. He has long had tensions with Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott, who struggled to control the top rated host who regularly defied fact-checkers and aired content that once prompted the New York Times to declare Tucker Carlson Tonight “the most racist show in the history of cable news.”
“She’s not the biggest fan of what he does,” an industry source told me of the relationship between Scott and Carlson. “But he gets viewers, and that’s why he has a direct relationship with Lachlan and Rupert.”
Carlson often flouted facts from his powerful perch. He regularly promoted the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. His bizarre coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol prompted searing rebukes from Republicans in the Senate. His promotion of the Ray Epps conspiracy theory has been widely condemned, and drew legal threats from the pro-Trump protestor.
Sources at Fox News speculated that Carlson’s ouster has a simple explanation: Murdoch didn’t want to deal with this shit anymore.
The problems weren’t confined to on-air. Dominion’s blockbuster defamation case against Fox News revealed Carlson regularly trashed network management in private texts to Fox News colleagues. That case also prompted a scandalous suit from Carlson’s former booker, Abby Grossberg, who accused his staff of making anti-Semitic jokes, liberal use of the word “cunt” in the office, and casual misogyny.
The Wall Street Journal, which is also owned by Murdoch, reported that Carlson’s private messages contributed to his ouster.
“The company took issue with remarks Mr. Carlson made that were derogatory toward the network,” the Journal reported. “Much of the communications were redacted in court documents but became known internally to senior Fox management.”
What’s more, the messages showed Carlson speaking in brutal terms about Trump, a figure the host lavishes with praise on air. “I hate him passionately,” Carlson said of Trump in a private text.
Sources at Fox News told Mediaite the news hit like a bomb inside the network, shocking even staffers close to the ex-prime time host who had no idea this was coming. Many at Fox, sources said, found out about Carlson’s ouster when it broke in the news.
Carlson did not appear to know on Friday that he would be unemployed by Monday. The host signed off Tucker Carlson Tonight by telling his audience: “We’ll be back on Monday.”
One Fox News insider said the decision to oust Carlson was made by Murdoch himself. They expressed sympathy for the ousted Fox host: “Rupert is 92. He just called off a weeks-long engagement and settled for 800 mil so he wouldn’t have to go to Delaware. He just makes rash decisions.”
A source told Mediaite that Justin Wells, Carlson’s executive producer, is also leaving Fox.
Carlson has helmed the 8 p.m. hour at Fox News since 2017 after spending years as a lower-profile name at the network. In that timeslot, he quickly emerged as the top-rated host in cable news and established himself as one of the most influential voices of the Trump era. Before Fox News, Carlson worked at both CNN and MSNBC.
Carlson and Murdoch did not respond to a request for comment.
Read Fox’s statement below:
NEW YORK — April 24, 2023 — FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.
FOX News Media operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Digital, FOX News Audio, FOX News Books, the direct-to-consumer streaming services FOX Nation and FOX News International and the free ad-supported television service FOX Weather. Currently the number one network in all of cable, FNC has also been the most watched television news channel for more than 21 consecutive years, while FBN ranks among the top business channels on cable. Owned by Fox Corporation, FOX News Media reaches nearly 200 million people each month.
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