Fox News has seen its share of embarrassing headlines in recent weeks—most of which involve the network’s shoddy reporting and inconsistent relationship with the truth. And when it comes to reporting on major stories that involve or impact the network in some way, Seth Meyers said Wednesday that “the last people to hear about it are usually the people who watch Fox News.”
In fact, the Late Night host imagines that there were likely a handful of confused octogenarians watching Brian Kilmeade fill in for the freshly ousted Tucker Carlson earlier this week, and wondering why Tucker looked so strange.
While the news that Fox was parting ways with Tucker sent shockwaves through the media industry on Monday, it’s becoming clear the network’s powers-that-be might have seen this break-up coming—or at least anticipated that Tucker could become a headache for them at some point.
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On Tuesday, Meyers explained, “Rolling Stone reported this truly insane story: ‘Fox News executives have in their possession a dossier of alleged dirt on Tucker Carlson should he attack the network in the wake of his departure.’”
The story went on to claim that this divorce is about to get ugly, and that Carlson and some of Fox’s most powerful decision-makers “are parting ways on ‘the worst’ and ‘messiest possible terms.’” But the network seems to have proactively protected itself by gathering up as much embarrassing dirt as they could find on Tucker, should they ever need to use it.
According to Rolling Stone, “Fox is prepared to disclose some of its contents if execs suspect that Carlson is coming after the network.”
“Holy shit,” was Meyers’ immediate response to that juicy bit of intel, before adding: “If you’re an employer collecting dirt on an employee, but you’re not doing anything about it unless you need it for revenge, that speaks badly of them and you.”
In an email to The Daily Beast, a spokesperson for Fox News denied the existence of the “oppo file,” writing, “This is patently absurd and categorically false.”
