Fox News executives and board members were stunned after the company’s lawyers shared details of private messages from Tucker Carlson that featured deeply offensive, crude remarks, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Fox lawyers uncovered the messages while preparing for the company’s defense against Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit, but the top brass only learned of them a day before the trial was set to begin.
The Times said the messages, which sources described but didn’t share with the newspaper, set off a “crisis” at Fox and went beyond Carlson’s already-offensive comments on his prime-time show. Fox settled the case with Dominion for $787.5 million, two days after executives learned of the messages.
“One person briefed on the contents of the redacted material said one of the messages was particularly offensive, adding to the concern at the top of the company,” the Times reported. The messages have been redacted in legal filings. It’s unclear why Fox executives were not aware of them until earlier this month.
Citing people familiar with Fox’s discussions at the time, the Times added that the messages were key in the decision to dismiss Carlson, who for years had served as a near-untouchable standard-bearer of the network’s evening lineup.
The Dominion suit was primed to be an embarrassing and even more expensive endeavor than it was. Lawyers for the voting machine company were expected to call Fox News hosts including Carlson to testify, as well as Fox Corporation Chair Rupert Murdoch.
Before the trial, other text messages from Carlson surfaced in which he mocked those spreading then-President Donald Trump’s lies about election fraud during the 2020 race. Yet Carlson went on to be one of the biggest supporters of those myths.
The media world was stunned Monday after Fox News said Carlson would leave the network immediately, declaring last Friday’s show his final appearance and thanking him for his “service.” Carlson had given no indication that it was his last program, saying he would be “back on Monday.” The Wall Street Journal later reported he was told of his firing about 10 minutes before the news went public.
Carlson addressed his departure in a brief video posted to Twitter Wednesday, thanking his supporters for reaching out without mentioning his firing or former employer.
Several media outlets have asked that the redacted messages be made public, so they could still pose problems for Carlson and Fox News even after his departure. Other defamation suits are also making their way through the courts, including a separate $2.7 billion defamation suit filed by Smartmatic and another by a former Fox News producer who worked on Carlson’s show.