Fox News fires its most popular host, Tucker Carlson

• Fox News fires Tucker Carlson.
• He was their most popular primetime host.
• He had been under fire for a variety of legal and workplace issues.

On Monday, April 24, Fox News made a shocking decision. They unceremoniously fired one of the network’s most popular and controversial hosts, Tucker Carlson. The dismissal comes amid a slew of lawsuits and questions about his involvement in the January 6 riots.

The network has not given an official explanation for why the host was let go and Tucker Carlson has not made any public remarks since the news broke.

Fox News fires Tucker Carlson

Fox News fired primetime host Tucker Carlson on Monday, whose stew of complaints and political theories about Russia and the insurrection on January 6th had grown to define the network in recent years, making it an influential force in the Republican Party.

Fox said the network and Carlson had «agreed to part ways» but offered no explanation for the surprising move, saying the last broadcast of Tucker Carlson Tonight aired last Friday. Carlson ended the show by saying, «We’ll be back on Monday.»

Fox News fires Tucker Carlson amid various legal issues

The firing comes amid a cascade of bad legal news for Fox and Carlson. A week ago, Fox agreed to pay more than $787 million to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for airing false claims about faulty machines after the 2020 presidential election.

CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a report on Sunday about a man caught up in a Jan. 6 conspiracy theory who said Carlson was «obsessed» with him, and whose lawyer notified Fox of possible litigation because he was receiving threats as a result of Carlson’s comments.

Carlson was named in a lawsuit alleging he created a misogynistic and toxic workplace

Carlson was also recently named in a lawsuit by a former Fox producer who said the show had a toxic and misogynistic workplace, and that she had been pressured into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case.

Shares of Fox Corp. fell 4% a few seconds after the announcement of Carlson’s departure, then recovered to drop 2.9% at the end of trading on Monday.

Carlson and Don Lemon, both fired from their television networks

Meanwhile, CNN fired one if its popular hosts, Don Lemon. Lemon did not mesh well with his fellow morning show hosts and was forced to apologize to Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley for his comment that she was past her prime, according to the AP.

Carlson, however, had a greater influence, a greater number of viewers and a greater political impact. He worked at both CNN and MSNBC early in his career, then became Fox’s most popular personality after replacing Bill O’Reilly on the network’s primetime lineup in 2017.