Numerous advertisers have pulled their ads from Fox News shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro after they came under fire for offensive comments.
At least three advertisers have pulled their ads from Pirro’s show after she said wearing a hijab goes against the US Constitution. Pirro made the comments about Rep. Ilhan Omar, who was accused of anti-Semitism for suggesting that Jewish people have dual loyalty to Israel, not unlike what Pirro said about her.
“Think about it: Omar wears a hijab,” Pirro said Saturday. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which in itself is antithetical to the United States Constitution?”
Fox News condemned the comments the following day but, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the remarks caused advertisers like online marketplace LetGo, pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, and personal finance company NedWallet to pull their ads from her show.
Carlson under fire for earlier radio comments:
While Pirro made the remarks days earlier, Carlson has come under fire after several clips of him making denigrating comments about women and Muslims and defending a convicted child rapist on a radio show between 2006 and 2011 were published by Media Matters.
In one clip, Carlson defended polygamist cult leader Warren Jeffs after he was convicted of felony rape as an accomplice.
Carlson said marrying an adult and an underage girl is not “the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually assaulting that child.”
“The rapist, in this case, has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person, so it is a little different. I mean, let's be honest about it,” he said, adding, “He is accused of facilitating a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man.”
In other clips, Carlson called women “extremely primitive.”
In another set of clips, Carlson called Iraqis “semi-literate primitive monkeys” and used anti-gay slurs.
Carlson has refused to apologize, claiming that he was simply saying “something naughty on a radio show more than a decade” earlier.
The Wrap reports that sleepwear company Sheex and pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca have pulled their ads from Carlson’s show.
