Tucker Carlson’s firing from Fox News came after he used vulgar language to describe a network executive, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Carlson described a senior Fox News executive as a C-word in a text message obtained by lawyers as part of a defamation lawsuit between the network and Dominion Voting Systems, according to the Journal, which like Fox is part of the Murdoch media empire.
In a case settled last week for $787.5m, Fox lawyers reportedly convinced the Delaware judge to redact the message from public filings. Carlson, however, was still reportedly furious the network was not doing enough to protect him.
Other messages in which he called the Donald Trump adviser and attorney Sidney Powell attorney a C-word and a “bitch” were made public as part of the lawsuit.
The primetime host’s internal messages were among the most embarrassing for Fox, as he said he “passionately hated” Trump, called for a colleague to be fired for accurately fact-checking claims about voting machines, and bluntly criticized Powell.
More embarrassing information about Carlson may yet come to light. Rolling Stone reported on Tuesday that the network has a dossier of damaging information about him.
The thrust of Dominion’s defamation claims involved other anchors: Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs. Dobbs’s show was cancelled in 2021 but Bartiromo and Pirro remain.
Carlson was one of Fox’s biggest stars before he was abruptly fired on Monday, reportedly learning of his fate 10 minutes before it was announced.
The Fox executives Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch reportedly made the decision on Friday. The Los Angeles Times reported that Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old patriarch of the owning family, decided to fire Carlson with input from top officials.
Carlson faces a separate lawsuit from Abby Grossberg, a former senior booking producer who claims there was a sexist and hostile working environment on his show.
Staffers sat around joking about which female politicians they would rather sleep with, Grossberg alleges.
She also claims she was encouraged to lie when Dominion’s lawyers presented her with the message in which Carlson called Powell the C-word and a “bitch”.
Grossberg told lawyers it did not make her feel uncomfortable and she did not know how she would react if that type of language was used by Carlson and those around him. In reality, she said in a court filing, she knew Carlson was capable of using that language and felt “terrible” each time she heard it in the office.
Some at Fox had become concerned that Carlson, the network’s most-watched anchor, had begun to go too far in racist themes on his show, got the network in too much trouble with advertisers, and was operating as if he was bigger than the network, the Journal reported.
Carlson broadcast his show from a private studio in Maine. He has not commented on his firing.
Approached by Daily Mail reporters in Florida on Tuesday, the 53-year-old said: “Retirement is going great so far” and added: “I haven’t eaten dinner with my wife on a weeknight in seven years.”
Asked about future plans, he “flashed a broad smile and joked, ‘Appetizers plus entree,’” the tabloid website reported.
Announcing his departure on Monday, Fox News said: “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.”
It is not the first time Carlson has come under fire regarding vulgar language. In 2015, his brother Buckley Carlson sent an email to Carlson and Amy Spitalnick, then a spokesperson for the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, calling her a “whiny bitch”.
“Whiny little self-righteous bitch … and with such an ironic name, too … Spitalnick? Ironic because you just know she has extreme dick-fright; no chance has this girl ever had a pearl necklace. Spoogeneck? I don’t think so. More like LabiaFace,” Buckley Carlson wrote.
Carlson did not seem to have any issue with the language, telling BuzzFeed News, which obtained the email: “I just talked to my brother about his response, and he assures me he meant it in the nicest way.”
On Wednesday, Spitalnick told the Guardian in an email: “Fox News knew exactly who Tucker Carlson was when they handed him a primetime show in 2016 – and they saw his misogyny and white supremacy as an asset, at least until they faced legal liability.
“We should be clear: it’s not just his vulgar comments about women. Like with so many extremists, that misogyny was an early warning sign as he quickly became a fan favorite among avowed neo-Nazis – who saw him as their most effective vehicle to normalize their violent hate.”
