Megyn Kelly revealed further details about former colleague Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, claiming that the former nighttime host is effectively being held hostage by Fox News until he can negotiate out of his own contract.
Kelly addressed the subject on Thursday’s episode of the “The Megyn Kelly Show,” a daily news podcast which airs on Sirius XM Radio.
“I want to, I think, break some news for you: Tucker Carlson hasn’t actually been fired,” Kelly said. “He’s still an employee of Fox News Channel.”
Kelly continued to provide context, implying that Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott was personally snubbing Carlson for obscure and nebulous reasons.
“What happened was [that] Suzanne Scott called him — she’s the CEO — on Monday morning and said he was not going to be allowed to do anymore shows and that he had been kicked out of his company email, and now they’re going to have to negotiate an exit. Some reporting to me suggest that she said it’s going to be an amicable parting, right? Isn’t it? — completely catching Tucker off guard. But Tucker’s not fired. That’s my information … right now, he’s not free to launch a podcast or a digital show or negotiate with other employers at all, because he’s still under contract.”
Kelly was unsparing in her words of criticism for her former employer, suggesting that Fox News were ungrateful for Carlson’s loyalty to the network and impressive ratings.
“To me that’s just so disheartening. He’d been at the company for years — he’d been in the primetime for seven years and saw Fox News through one of the most difficult times in its history, the immediate era post-Roger Ailes. … They had lost two of their biggest stars, Bill O’Reilly and me!”
She gave considerable acclaim to Carlson for his uniqueness and insight and expressed bafflement over his supposed mistreatment by Fox News executives.
“He smashed the ball out of the park. He took a lot of risks. He was heterodox; he pushed against the orthodoxy on so many different things, and typically Fox News liked that — so why? Why now, what was it that led them to treat their number one star with such disdain — I mean, dripping disdain, to the point where he can no longer access his email, he doesn’t get to tell his own team, he doesn’t get to say goodbye — I mean it’s absolutely disrespectful to him, and unlike Don Lemon, he hadn’t been immersed in controversy after controversy inside the building against his own colleagues.”
Megyn Kelly herself left the network, apparently of her own accord, at the end of her contract in 2017. Kelly took up a role at NBC News later that year but was unceremoniously fired in 2018 after facing backlash for remarks on the subject of blackface makeup.
Scroll down to leave a comment and share your thoughts.
