Fox News shockingly fired Tucker Carlson earlier this week, but the controversial anchor is likely to have many career options ahead of him.
In the days since it was announced that Fox would be parting with Carlson – the host of a daily show in the 8 p.m. time slot that dominated news broadcasts – people have been abuzz about where he could end up.
Through his nightly show on Fox News, Carlson built quite a loyal and large following among conservatives. As such, it’s very likely that in the near future, other conservative media outlets could come knocking on his door to see if he’s interested in working for them.
Recently, one media executive at a conservative company – who asked not to be named so he could speak candidly – told media outlet The Hill:
“Right now, he has every option in the world available to him. Very, very rarely does the biggest star in the business become a free agent without any taint on him from the perspective of potential employers.”
That being said, Carlson isn’t “squeaky clean” in that regard, so to speak.
Carlson’s firing from Fox News came only a few days after the media company agreed to settle its $1.5 billion defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting System for $787.5 million. The maker of voting systems for the 2020 presidential election sued Fox News, accusing the network and many of its hosts of amplifying conspiracy theories and false information about Dominion’s systems changing votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden – even though they knew that information wasn’t true.
While only one statement that Carlson made was part of the suit, his private email correspondences and text messages were uncovered as part of the discovery process for the trial.
Those conversations revealed that Carlson hated Trump even though he would support him on air. They also showed the anchor going off on executives at Fox News for harming the station’s reputation.
A former producer at Fox News has also filed a lawsuit that names both the network and Carlson himself, claiming that they created a toxic environment at work. Fox has denied those allegations.
In a statement that the network released about that case, it said:
“Abby Grossberg’s allegations in connection with the Dominion case are baseless and she had no bearing on the settlement. We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her unmeritorious legal claims, which are riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.”
While this baggage may be too much for some networks to handle, there’s no denying that Carlson is a giant in the media world and will likely be a sought-after anchor.
Carlson, who is 53 years old, doesn’t have to rush to make a decision on where he’d like to work next, though. The Wall Street Journal – which is also owned by Fox Corporation owner Rupert Murdoch – said that Carlson would be paid out the remainder of his contract.
