Fox News and Tucker Carlson part ways after Fox settles Dominion lawsuit
Fox personality Tucker Carlson speaks at the 2017 Business Insider Ignition: Future of Media conference in New York, U.S., November 30, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
(Reuters) -Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways, the media company said in a statement on Monday, less than a week after Fox News and parent company Fox Corp settled a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.
The settlement averted a trial putting one of the world's top media companies in the crosshairs over its coverage of false vote-rigging claims in the 2020 U.S. election.
Carlson had been expected to testify in the Dominion trial. Dominion had alleged that statements made on Carlson’s show after the 2020 election were defamatory and that messages between Carlson and his team were proof that he and his team knew the falsehood of claims that Denver-based Dominion's ballot-counting machines were used to manipulate the election in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.
Carlson’s last program was April 21, the company said in a statement. It said that "Fox News Tonight" will air live at 8 p.m. EST starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating Fox News personalities until a new host is named.
(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York and Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul)
