By Gerry Smith
Fox News announced Monday that Tucker Carlson, the host of its top-rated late-night show, will immediately leave the network.
His departure comes a week after Fox agreed to pay US$787 million to Dominion Voting Systems Inc. and not go to trial as part of a defamation lawsuit.
Carlson’s last show took place Friday.
“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways.”
“We thank him for his service to the network as a host and, before that, as a contributor,” the company said in a statement. His departure leaves a significant hole in the No. 1 US network’s programming lineup.
Before the settlement, Carlson was among a handful of Fox Corp. figures, including Chairman Rupert Murdoch, scheduled to testify in the case.
The others were Murdoch’s son Lachlan; Fox Corp. CEO; Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott; and network anchor Maria Bartiromo.
A key development that led to the settlement was the possibility that a producer’s secret recordings of Carlson’s show would be played at trial.
Abby Grossberg, then a producer on Carlson’s show, filed a sex and religious discrimination lawsuit last month that alleged she had been coerced into giving false testimony during depositions with Dominion attorneys.
She subsequently provided the voting machine maker with recordings she had made with a phone; brief excerpts were played during a pretrial hearing last week.
The unexpected development caused a major headache for Fox’s lawyers, said the people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The defense feared Grossberg’s testimony and recordings would be used by Dominion’s lawyers against Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and other witnesses expected to take the stand during the trial.
Combined with fears about Murdoch taking the stand in Wilmington, Delaware, and a series of pretrial rulings that scuttled many of Fox’s defenses, Grossberg was a tipping point in convincing network executives to settle Tuesday, after a jury had been selected and just before opening statements at trial began, the people added.
With information from Bloomberg