It may not have been Tucker Carlson’s racist statements or his dissemination of election denialism that sealed his fate and led to his surprise firing from Fox News Monday.
The “leading theory” for why Rupert Murdoch and other Fox executives finally decided it was time to part ways with the provocative face of their network was his misogynistic behavior, according to reports from New York magazine and the Daily Beast. While Fox News settled the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for a record $787.5 million last week, the network is still mired in a suit brought by former producer Abby Grossberg, who alleges Carlson encouraged a toxic, sexist work environment.
Both the Dominion lawsuit and Grossberg’s allegations “showcased Carlson and his staff’s penchant for misogyny — a tendency that reportedly didn’t go over well with top executives,” New York Magazine said.
Fox News has offered no explanation for why it fired its top-rated host, one of the of the most influential voices in Republican politics and the on-air talent “who helped define the network’s bombastic tone in the Trump era,” as the Washington Post said. Carlson was “stunned” by his firing, only learning on Monday morning that he was being removed from his prime-time show and that his Fox News email account was shut off, Vanity Fair reported.
The Daily Beast’s Collider newsletter reported that a constellation of factors led to Carlson’s ouster, but the host’s most “egregious” act was his alleged use of a vulgar term when he talked about Donald Trump’s attorney Sidney Powell, who represented the former president as he pressed false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election.
Carlson was “nailed” in court documents for his repeated use of the word that refers to female genitalia, the Daily Beast said. His use of the word came up during his deposition with lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems and “loomed large in his termination,” sources told the Daily Beast’s Collider.
During the deposition, Carlson was asked if “this wasn’t the only time you referred to Sidney Powell as a ‘expletive?’” The Fox News star was apparently taken aback by the question. He reportedly responded: “You know I-I-I can’t know and I just want to apologize preemptively. I mean you’re trying to embarrass me, you’re definitely succeeding as I am embarrassed.”
It may surprise Fox News critics that misogyny — and not so many other issues — could have ultimately doomed Carlson’s career at Fox News. Puck writer Dylan Byers said he’s been “reliably told” that neither misogyny nor use of a certain word was a “a primary” factor in Carlson’s termination, saying, “I don’t think any credible person would believe that Fox News, which promoted election denialism and MyPillowism, is such a PG-13 culture.”
Analysis by CNN’s Oliver Darcy said that Murdoch and other executives may have finally realized that there was more “risk” than “reward” to hanging onto Carlson. He brings “a lot of drama and intrigue” but he’s not a team player, can’t be controlled and carries legal baggage at a time when the Murdochs seem eager to put an end to legal disputes and ongoing bad publicity.
The Daily Beast noted that the network has had no problem in recent years with quickly dispatching top employees who’ve attracted negative publicity after being publicly accused of inappropriate workplace behavior. Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly — both powerful, high-profile and seemingly indispensable figures at the network — were fired in 2016 and 2017, respectively, after it became publicly known that they had faced years of sexual harassment complaints.
The New York Times reported in 2017 that some $13 million was paid to five women who had filed lawsuits against O’Reilly. Other Fox News stars forced out of their jobs due to sexual harassment allegations include James Rosen and Ed Henry, NPR also reported.
Murdoch himself showed he may have developed a growing intolerance for sexually inappropriate behavior among his stars when it became known last month that he personally ordered the network to fire Kimberly Guilfoyle, an afternoon-show host who mysteriously left the network in 2018 as she started dating Donald Trump Jr. and became a top campaign for Donald Trump.
In an email, sent in the wake of the 2020 election and made public in the Dominion lawsuit, Murdoch said he “insisted” Fox News fire Guilfoyle “for inappropriate behavior.” According to a 2020 New Yorker report, the allegations against Guilfoyle came from a former assistant, who said that the ex-wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom showed lewd photos of male genitalia to colleagues and regularly discussed sexual matters at work.
In a pair of lawsuits filed against Fox News, Grossberg, a top booker for Carlson’s show, also described a hostile workplace at the network, according to New York magazine and the Washington Post. She detailed specific allegations against Carlson’s team, while also alleging that that the network’s lawyers tried to make her one of the scapegoats in the Dominion case.
In a federal court filing, Grossberg said that the workplace culture on Carlson’s show “subjugates women based on vile sexist stereotypes” and “typecasts religious minorities and belittles their traditions,” New York magazine said. On her second day of work, Grossberg said a senior producer asked her if Maria Bartiromo, her previous boss at the network, ever had sex with Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, the Republican House Speaker. Grossberg also alleged that her male colleagues joked about the attractiveness of female politicians, with one co-worker implying that a “fat” Republican congresswoman only got her job by sleeping with her predecessor.
In a statement to New York magazine, Grossberg called Carlson’s firing “a step towards accountability for the election lies and baseless conspiracy theories spread by Fox News, as well as for the abuse and harassment I endured.
New York magazine noted that other issues revealed during discovery in the Dominion lawsuit may have made Carlson’s position at Fox News increasingly untenable. Citing “a person familiar with the company’s thinking,” the Washington Post reported that “Carlson’s comments about Fox management, as revealed in the Dominion case,” also played a role in his departure.
“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience?” Carlson wrote to a colleague in a message the day after Fox, like other media outlets, called the election for Joe Biden the Washington Post reported. This view was echoed by others at Fox in the fall of 2020, as even network officials admitted that they disbelieved Trump’s election-fraud conspiracy theories but worried that countering them would alienate their conservative viewers.
In another message, Carlson referred to executives with an expletive and despaired that management — “a combination of incompetent liberals and top leadership” have too much pride to back down on declaring the election for Biden, the Washington Post also said.
The Washington Post reported that the decision to fire Carlson was made Friday evening by Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott. The Los Angeles Times added that the decision to fire Carlson came directly from Murdoch, “with input from board members and other Fox Corp. executives.”
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