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Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News, having hosted his last primetime episode Friday, less than a week after settling a lawsuit over the network’s 2020 election reporting.
“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” Fox News wrote in a statement Monday. “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 21. 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.”
There was no immediate explanation from Fox about why Carlson was leaving, but some reports suggest Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch sought Carlson’s ouster.
Indeed, DailyMail.com reported that, according to sources close to Carlson’s Fox show, the on-air celeb commentator was blindsided by the news. Some of his closest staff learned about the move only by reading Twitter, the news website said.
Meanwhile, Don Lemon claimed Monday that CNN fired him, posting a lengthy account on Twitter that the nework later disputed.
“I was informed this morning by my agent that I have been terminated by CNN. I am stunned,” Lemon wrote. “After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that
someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly. At no time was I ever given any indication that I would not be able to continue to do the work I have loved at the network. It is clear that there are some larger issues at play.”
The network’s communications department called Lemon’s account “inaccurate.”
“Don Lemon’s statement about this morning’s events is inaccurate,” the tweet said. “He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.”
CNN CEO ChrisLicht announced Lemon’s departure in a statement:
“CNN and Don have parted ways. Don will forever be a part of the CNN family, and we thank him for his contributions over the past 17 years. We wish him well and will be cheering him on in his future endeavors.”
Lemon’s departure comes a little over two months after he apologized to viewers for on-air comments about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley. During a discussion on “CNN This Morning” about the ages of politicians, Lemon said that the 51-year-old Haley was not “in her prime.” A woman, he said, was considered in her prime “in her 20s, 30s and maybe her 40s.”
Challenged by Harlow, Lemon added: “Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m just saying what the facts are.”
Carlson was recently named in a lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, a Fox News producer fired after claiming Fox lawyers had pressured her to give misleading testimony in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit. Grossberg had gone to work for Carlson after leaving Maria Bartiromo’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Her lawsuit says Grossberg learned “she had merely traded in one overtly misogynistic work environment for an even crueler one — this time, one where unprofessionalism reigned supreme, and the staff’s distaste and disdain for women infiltrated almost every workday decision.”
Sources told the L.A. Times that Carlson’s ouster was related to the Grossberg lawsuit and not the $787.5-million settlement Fox News agreed to pay to Dominion Voting Systems last week.