In an austere, four-sentence statement, Fox News announced Monday that primetime star Tucker Carlson is leaving the network, effective immediately.
"FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways," the network said, in a statement released by a spokesperson. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
Fox said Carlson's last day hosting his show was Friday. Carlson did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The ouster of Fox's top opinion host comes less than a week after Fox settled an epic defamation lawsuit by an election technology company for more than $787 million. Dominion Voting Systems sued over segments promoting bogus claims that election fraud cheated then-President Donald Trump of victory in 2020.
Carlson featured in Dominion Voting System's lawsuit. Yet he is also the focus of a lawsuit from his former senior booking producer, Abby Grossberg, who filed two separate suits.
In one of the suits, Grossberg accused Carlson and Fox of sexism and harassment, alleging his show's workplace was replete with misogyny. Her lawsuit claims, among other things, that mocked-up photographic images depicted then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "in a bathing suit revealing her cleavage" and that staffers were polled — on two separate occasions — on which of two female candidates for Michigan governor they would rather have sex with.
Grossberg's other lawsuit focuses on the actions of Fox's legal team. She says the attorneys pressured her to lie in her sworn statements for the defamation case about what she witnessed at the network.
Fox vigorously denied the accusations against its lawyers. It fired Grossberg after she filed her suits, alleging she disclosed privileged information amid the defamation litigation that she was not legally entitled to make public.
Documents made public before the settlement with Dominion reveal a clear divide between what Carlson said on air and behind the scenes. On his show, he raised skeptical questions over the lack of evidence for assertions made by a key Trump ally, Sidney Powell. In Jan. 2021, however, he hosted a leading advertiser, My Pillow founder Mike Lindell, who repeated the false claims once more. In his private communications to a colleague, Carlson called Powell an exceptionally vulgar and denigrating term for a woman.
Fox says a rotating cast of personalities will fill in during the primetime slot until the network names a permanent replacement.
Carlson was by far the network's most prominent personality, stepping in smoothly to replace former star host Bill O'Reilly after a series of sexual harassment allegations forced his departure. (O'Reilly has denied those accusations.)
Carlson also established a major footprint at Fox Nation, its streaming site that caters to an even more pronounced right-wing sensibility.
Despite his shocking departure, Carlson had endured more controversies than most cable news stars could hope to survive professionally. In July 2020, his top writer was forced out after it was discovered he had posted racist, sexist and homophobic commentaries. Last month, the Daily Dot found that one of Carlson's staffers had the habit of "liking" posts from VDare, a site for white nationalists.
His show has been condemned by civil rights leaders for broadcasting racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant ideology.
His work on his show — accentuated by specials on the streaming service — also sparked a firestorm by portraying those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021 siege of the U.S. Capitol as civic-minded people who were being politically persecuted.
That contributed to the decision by several prominent Fox figures to depart — including Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace and conservative commentators Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg.
NPR's David Folkenflik spoke to LAist's public affairs show AirTalk Monday morning about this stunning news.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org.
