All parties are awaiting the specifics and timeline of Tucker Carlson’s next move. Carlson has received multiple employment offers but is currently on hiatus as the situation unfolds publicly.
In the aftermath of Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, other news figures who have departed the network in the past year are under scrutiny. Dan Bongino, a well-known presenter, departed the network citing disagreements in negotiations. Melissa Francis, another presenter, reflects on the circumstances of her own departure from the network.
In a Sirius XM interview with Megyn Kelly, former Fox News presenter Francis discussed her departure from the network. The Los Angeles Times reported that the former Fox News host received $15 million in 2022 after filing a gender-based pay disparity claim against the company. Francis’s team believes she was terminated from Fox News due to her lawsuit against the network.
Megyn Kelly was the first person with whom Francis discussed her departure from Fox News during an interview late last year. During the interview, Francis began by recalling an alleged incident in which Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott allegedly “shrugged it off” when her administrator at the network sent an email referring to her as a “misogynistic sexist name.”
Francis is reevaluating her experience with Fox in relation to the manner in which she was fired and the surrounding circumstances, namely the conduct of colleagues in comparison to Carlson’s.
“When I worked at Fox News, there was a manager of mine who sent an email calling me a misogynistic, sexist name, and talking about — demeaning my behavior. He sent it around to all of the managers, and accidentally included me — we’ve all done that, to be honest. When you’re gossiping about someone and you add them to it too,” Francis said.
“So he did that. So when I received that email I went directly to [Fox News CEO] Suzanne Scott’s office because she also was copied on the email. And I said, what the f***?’ Like — I mean — and she shrugged it off. And that man who sent that email demeaning me in a sexist and misogynistic way still works there. In fact, he was the author of many of the things you read in the Dominion case,” she added.
“And I checked yesterday — he’s still there. So this idea, that something in a text would be so awful that they wouldn’t — they’re on the side of women. They don’t want to subject Fox women to an environment where you have someone like Tucker saying those words — that is a bald-faced lie.”
Francis stated that she had a home studio equipped with cameras and a remote-controlled teleprompter, and she claimed that she was fired via the teleprompter, according to Conservative Brief.
“So the lights go on. I have a robotic camera so I don’t have the power to turn any of it on and off. That’s done from the studio. So the lights come on, the teleprompter comes on… I went over, I sat down, I clicked on my mic. I checked in, we talked to the producers, we did the whole thing,” she said.
“I’m about to go. And it comes up in the prompter, ‘You’ve been canceled’ and I said, ‘What what’s going on?’” Francis recalled. “And all of a sudden, everything went dead in my living room, just lights out, everything dead. And I was like, ‘Wow, okay. This is, this is how we’re doing this. Huh? Wow,’” the former host said.
“I talked to the show staff afterward and they were like, ‘We had — we weren’t told anything. We have no idea what happened.’ And they were left scrambling. I mean, all of a sudden this poor show team had no idea and they just yanked the electricity on their anchor,” Francis continued.
It appears that a number of conservative Fox News personalities departed under intriguing circumstances. Conservative Brief noted that Fox News made headlines when it announced that presenter Dan Bongino had left the news network.
“Folks, regretfully, last week was my last show on Fox News on the Fox News Channel,” the host said on his podcast, Variety reported. “It’s tough. It’s tough to say that. You know, I’ve been there doing hits and working there for ten years…so the show ending was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension.”
“We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavors,” the network said, adding that it will air ‘Lawrence Jones Cross Country” in place of Bongino’s show until the network announces a new schedule.