Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera, who recently revealed that he was leaving his co-hosting gig on The Five, tweeted Thursday that he had quit the conservative network because he’d been “fired” from the late-afternoon panel show.
“Bumpy day on the North Atlantic. Anyway, I got fired from @TheFive so I quit Fox,” Rivera wrote alongside a video of him boating. “After 23 years tomorrow Fox and Friends could be my last appearance on the network. Thanks for the memories.”
In the video, Rivera said that “I’m not going to be on The Five” this week as he’s “been fired” from the program. Earlier this month, after announcing he would no longer be one of the show’s rotating “liberal” co-hosts, Rivera had noted that his final appearances would be June 29 and 30.
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“And, as a result of that, I’ve quit Fox. So, I’ll have more to say about that on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning. Thank you,” he concluded.
Rivera told The Daily Beast on Thursday evening that his tweet “sums it up.” He added that he’s “not mad at anybody” and is “looking forward to the next adventure.”
This latest declaration comes just days after he posted a shirtless selfie on Twitter and said he was “contemplating retirement.” He also noted at the time that he was still “unsure about my next career move” and would announce on The Five whether he would stay at Fox “or do something else.”
Looks like he decided the latter.
“We reached an amicable conclusion with Geraldo over the past few weeks and look forward to celebrating him tomorrow on Fox & Friends which will be his last appearance on the network,” Fox News said in a statement on Thursday evening.
After announcing his imminent departure from The Five last week, in which he said “being the odd man out isn’t always easy,” Rivera insisted to the Associated Press that it was his decision to leave Fox News’ most-watched program. At the same time, he added that Fox management “didn’t race after me to say, ‘Geraldo, please come back.’”
Rivera also acknowledged to the AP that there had “been a growing tension that goes beyond editorial differences and personal annoyances and gripes.” Approaching his 80th birthday, the longtime Fox personality also claimed that the show is no longer “worth it to me” as it is “too intimate a place and it gets too personal.”
Last month, amid frequent and increasingly bitter clashes with Five co-host Greg Gutfeld, Rivera grumbled that he’d “been canceled” from upcoming broadcasts of the show, adding that he was “sure there’s a good reason.” The supposed cancellation came after Gutfeld publicly mocked Rivera for criticizing former Fox News star Tucker Carlson right after Carlson’s ouster.
At that time, a Fox News insider told The Daily Beast that Gutfeld was likely responsible for Rivera’s May cancellations and reduced appearances on the program. Other network sources, however, rejected that premise and said Rivera hadn’t been on the calendar in the first place.
In his interview with the AP, though, Rivera disclosed that he’d been suspended by Fox News several times, including as recently as last month. That also coincided with his Carlson criticism, Gutfeld’s rebuttal, and his canceled appearances on The Five in early May.
In recent months, his appearances on The Five dried up, even though he was supposedly one of the show’s regular “liberal” panelists. According to a transcript search, he had not been on the program since May 24 and had only appeared a few times prior to that since he openly complained about being sidelined.
Rivera, who has been with Fox since 2001, was named by the network early last year as one of the three rotating co-hosts who would replace The Five’s longtime progressive panelist Juan Williams, who left months earlier. Incidentally, sources told The Daily Beast at the time of Williams’ departure that Gutfeld, who frequently sparred with the veteran Fox News contributor on-air, had pushed Williams out.
