Carlson had signed off of Friday’s show by wishing viewers the “best weekend” and telling them he’d be back on Monday. He did not respond to a request for comment from NPR.
The ouster of Fox’s top opinion host comes less than a week after Fox settled an epic defamation lawsuit by an election technology company for more than $787 million. Dominion Voting Systems sued over segments promoting bogus claims that election fraud cheated then-President Donald Trump of victory in 2020.
Carlson featured in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit. Yet he is also the focus of a lawsuit from his former senior booking producer, Abby Grossberg, who filed two separate suits.
Producer suing Carlson for sex discrimination celebrates his departure
In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, Grossberg accused Carlson and Fox of sexism and harassment, alleging that his show’s workplace was replete with examples of misogyny. Her lawsuit claims, among other things, that mocked-up photographic images depicted then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “in a bathing suit revealing her cleavage” and that staffers were polled — on two separate occasions — on which of two female candidates for Michigan governor they would rather have sex with.
“Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News is, in part, an admission of the systemic lying, bullying, and conspiracy-mongering claimed by our client,” said Tanvir Rahman, one of Grossberg’s lawyers, in a statement Monday afternoon. “Mr. Carlson and his subordinates remain individual defendants in the S.D.N.Y. case and we look forward to taking their depositions under oath in the very near term.”
Grossberg’s other lawsuit, filed in Delaware, focuses on the actions of Fox’s legal team. She says the attorneys pressured her to lie in her sworn statements for the defamation case about what she witnessed at the network.