Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said in a new interview that he still doesn’t know why the company announced it was parting ways with him earlier this year.
“I don’t know why I was fired. I really don’t. I’m not angry about it. I wish Fox well,” he told podcast host Russell Brand this week in an interview that aired Friday on YouTube.
Mr. Brand had asked Mr. Carlson about the reason behind his firing and whether it had to do with Mr. Carlson’s shows that featured new footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol breach or other reasons. “Honestly I don’t know,” Carlson said. “They didn’t agree with me of course, I don’t think,” Mr. Carlson also said, adding that he can “only speculate” about the reasons.
In a brief news release issued in late April, Fox News said that it had parted ways with Mr. Carlson despite his nightly show being one of the top-rated programs in cable news. The network has released virtually no information since then, and Mr. Carlson has since launched a show on Twitter, drawing tens of millions of views for its first few episodes.
Also in his interview with Mr. Brand, Mr. Carlson said he isn’t being paid by Twitter or its owner Elon Musk, adding that he doesn’t want to have a boss again. “What social media offers in the short term is an audience and a reason to write,” Mr. Carlson told the podcast host.
Meanwhile, Mr. Carlson has retained multiple lawyers, including former California Republican official Harmeet Dhillon, after Fox News reportedly sent cease-and-desist letters to him to stop his Twitter show. Fox News has not responded to multiple requests for comment about the letter.
The reported letter claimed that, with the new show, Mr. Carlson “is in breach” of his contract with Fox. It also asserted that Mr. Carlson’s contract states that he’s “prohibited from rendering services of any type whatsoever, whether ‘over the internet via streaming or similar distribution, or other digital distribution whether now known or hereafter devised.’”
Following the letter, another lawyer for Mr. Carlson issued a response.
