Fox Information mentioned Monday that it was parting methods with Tucker Carlson, its hottest prime time host who was additionally the supply of repeated controversies and complications for the community due to his statements on all the pieces from race relations to L.G.B.T.Q. rights.
The community made the announcement lower than every week after it agreed to pay $787.5 million in a defamation lawsuit by which Mr. Carlson’s present, one of many highest rated on Fox, figured prominently for its position in spreading misinformation after the 2020 election.
In making its announcement, Fox provided a terse assertion of gratitude. “Fox Information Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to half methods. We thank him for his service to the community as a bunch and previous to that as a contributor,” it mentioned.
His abrupt departure shocked folks inside Fox Information and within the broader conservative media universe, the place Mr. Carlson had appreciable energy to raise candidates and controversies. His place on the community appeared to develop untenable rapidly. Fox had been selling an interview Mr. Carlson was set to do on Monday with Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate for president in 2024.
His final program was on Friday, Fox mentioned.
Mr. Carlson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The Fox Information host Harris Faulkner mentioned on air on Monday that beginning that night, an interim present, “Fox Information Tonight,” would fill the 8 p.m. hour “with rotating Fox Information personalities till a brand new host is called.”
It wasn’t simply Mr. Carlson’s phrases on the air that obtained him in hassle. His non-public messages with producers — by which they denigrated former President Donald J. Trump and his authorized advisers after the 2020 election in vulgar and sexist phrases — had been disclosed as a part of the defamation lawsuit towards Fox by Dominion Voting Techniques. In a single change with employees, Mr. Carlson texted about Mr. Trump: “I hate him passionately.” In one other, he labeled Mr. Trump “a demonic pressure, a destroyer.”
His departure brings to an finish a speedy and controversial rise on the conservative information and opinion channel, the place Mr. Carlson was promoted to the prime-time lineup in late 2016 and rapidly emerged as one of many main media stars of the Trump period.
Greater than another Fox host, Mr. Carlson drew in viewers by harnessing cultural anxieties and racial grievances of the previous president’s political base. He warned his viewers that they had been beneath assault from liberal elites and unchecked immigration, borrowing a few of his central themes from the white nationalist and far-right internet and sharpening them up for a extra mainstream viewers.
When Fox launched a streaming community, Fox Nation, to take advantage of extra income out of its most loyal followers, it was Mr. Carlson who turned the brand new platform’s high persona, with a thrice-weekly discuss present and periodic documentaries that doubled down on his themes of duplicitous elites and race-obsessed liberals.
At his top inside Fox, he defied the community’s senior management whereas cultivating the impression amongst colleagues that he was shut with the Murdoch household, significantly Fox chief Lachlan Murdoch. He additionally wielded his stature to bully and strain extra junior colleagues on the information aspect once they challenged the present’s highly effective opinion hosts or reported — precisely — on the 2020 election outcomes.
Mr. Carlson can be dealing with a lawsuit from a former Fox Information producer, Abby Grossberg, who claims that he presided over a misogynistic and discriminatory office tradition. Ms. Grossberg mentioned within the lawsuit, which was filed in March, that on her first day working for Mr. Carlson, she found the work house was adorned with massive footage of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi carrying a plunging swimsuit. Ms. Grossberg mentioned Mr. Carlson’s employees steadily used a vulgar time period for girls, and that she was as soon as referred to as into the highest producer’s workplace to be requested whether or not Maria Bartiromo, a Fox Enterprise host she beforehand labored for, was having a sexual relationship with the Home Republican chief, Kevin McCarthy.
Ms. Grossberg, who was fired after submitting the lawsuit, additionally claimed that after she was coerced by Fox’s attorneys into offering a deceptive deposition within the Dominion case and defending an offensive textual content from Mr. Carlson, his producers emailed the remainder of the employees in recognition of “Abby Day” and prompt ordering a employees lunch to have a good time.
Fox has disputed Ms. Grossberg’s claims. A spokeswoman mentioned in a latest assertion: “We’ll proceed to vigorously defend Fox towards Ms. Grossberg’s unmeritorious authorized claims, that are riddled with false allegations towards Fox and our staff.”
Mr. Carlson, 53, had helmed his prime time present “Tucker Carlson Tonight” since 2016. In 2021, he signed a brand new take care of Fox Information increasing into podcasts and a sequence referred to as “Tucker Carlson Originals” for the streaming service Fox Nation.
This can be a growing story. Verify again for updates.