Reports: Tucker Carlson's rampant misogyny led to his ouster at Fox News

Tucker Carlson’s seven-year reign over Fox News’ prime-time lineup came to an abrupt end on Monday when the right-wing commentator was unceremoniously and without warning fired by the network.

Speculation abounded as to what led to his abrupt dismissal from the network — whether it was the election misinformation he spread that helped cost Fox News hundreds of millions in a lawsuit, or the unfiltered hate and racism he spewed that cost the cable network advertisers.

But the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that it was Carlson’s misogynistic comments about Fox News employees and guests that did him in.

Text messages Carlson sent that were made public as part of the lawsuit Fox News settled with Dominion Voting Systems revealed that Carlson had called election denier Sidney Powell a “cunt.”

The Journal also reported that Fox News successfully convinced a judge to redact another text exchange produced in the Dominion lawsuit in which Carlson called an unnamed senior Fox News executive the same thing.

Abby Grossberg, a producer on Carlson’s show, alleged in a separate lawsuit that the word was used often by his staff. During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline White House” on Tuesday, Grossberg said that she was punished for speaking out against the misogynistic behavior: “I was shut out of meetings. I was mocked. I was eventually demoted. That’s how it played out for me.”

Carlson had publicly made misogynistic comments as well.

In November 2021, he implied that Vice President Kamala Harris got to her position in politics because of who she’s slept with.

“We know Willie Brown is not the only powerful person she dated,” Carlson said on his show, referring to the former mayor of San Francisco. “And this is pretty interesting. We’re not exactly sure what to make of it, but it turns out that Kamala Harris also dated the tabloid TV show host Montel Williams, who was always doing shows about people’s weird sex lives.”

Carlson continued, “So we would love to talk with Montel Williams about his torrid relationship with ‘Kam-uh-la’ or ‘Kah-muh-lah’ because that might be one of those blanks we’d like to fill in.” 

In 2019, Media Matters for America unearthed audio of Carlson on the shock jock radio show Bubba the Love Sponge in which he called women “extremely primitive,” said celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton were “the biggest white whores in America,” and called Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan unattractive.

“I feel sorry for her in that way. I feel sorry for unattractive women,” Carlson said. “It’s just absolutely fundamental — physically, the problems with her are fundamental. She’s never going to be an attractive woman.”

It’s unclear what Carlson will do next, or who will take over for his prime-time show. The 8 p.m. time slot was one of the most-watched on the Fox network, and whoever hosts that hour next may be able to sway a Republican base that watches what its critics say is a glorified propaganda outlet.

“Well, this is a supply-and-demand story. So one of the biggest supplies has been cut off today,” media reporter Brian Stelter said on PBS of Carlson’s misinformation. “Tucker Carlson is gone. Fox will figure out how to replace him. Maybe they will choose a less conspiratorial, less paranoid host. But the show will go on.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.