Megyn Kelly slammed Fox News for calling Charlie Kirk “theirs” despite sidelining him over his support for Tucker Carlson, criticizing the network’s treatment of him on her podcast.
“It’s really bothering me how Fox News is talking about Charlie, like he was theirs — he wasn’t. It’s a lie. Just stop,” Kelly said.
Kelly, who left Fox News in January 2017, has since become a sharp critic of the network. She argued that despite some hosts’ friendliness toward Kirk, Fox leadership intentionally kept him off the air, especially after Carlson’s 2023 firing.
“Fox News, they wouldn’t put Charlie on, OK?” she said. “I know this from my own behind-the-scenes conversations, and I’m not going to specify from whom. But they were annoyed on Team Charlie because he was banned. They wouldn’t put him on. He had been too supportive of Tucker.”
Kirk was largely absent from Fox News after Carlson’s 2023 firing and into early 2024, though Kelly said the network gave him brief spots to mask the ban. The Turning Point USA co-founder complained the ban persisted, noting Fox’s absence from his AmericaFest event in Phoenix that December.
“We don’t have a single person from Fox here, and in the years past, we have,” Kirk said. “They’ve been very good to me; I hope we can heal our relationship, because for whatever reason, it’s gone off the reservation.”
He added that he had been effectively banned from the network and referred to Grabien, the online video archive of clips from newsmakers, by stating, “You just look at Grabien — no Charlie Kirk for nine months, right?”
Kirk then confirmed the source of the rift was his support for Carlson: “Since Tucker’s departure, I haven’t been on. And so we had to do an event without Fox. And that was a great thing, man, because sometimes desperation is the mother of innovation, right?”
Kirk said his team was used to Fox hosts like Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld backing TPUSA events, but after the ban, “we couldn’t do it — they’re not allowed to be here.”
Others noted Kirk angered Fox News leadership and the Murdoch family by strongly backing Trump despite his 2020 loss and legal troubles. His situation mirrored other pro-Trump allies who faced lengthy bans from the network, including Jason Miller, Pam Bondi, Kari Lake, Karoline Leavitt, Peter Navarro, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, and Andrew Giuliani. Fox News previously denied that Giuliani and his son were totally banned, but the Giulianis maintained that the network’s claim was false.
Abby Grossberg, a former Carlson producer, sued Fox News in 2023 over a hostile work environment, alleging figures like Kari Lake, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, and Jenna Ellis were often “on and off the banned list.” Fox called the claims false but later settled for $12 million.
Longtime Trump fundraiser Caroline Wren took to X last week after Kirk’s death to remind and inform Trump supporters of Fox News’ actions, writing:
“I appreciate the coverage Fox News is giving Charlie Kirk tonight, but let’s not forget that Fox banned Charlie from coming on the network from 2021-2024, and the same anchors crying on air tonight over losing ‘an amazing champion for free speech’ are the same anchors who didn’t have the guts to challenge Murdoch, Paul Ryan, and Karl Rove when they banned Charlie from their network.”
I appreciate the coverage Fox News is giving Charlie Kirk tonight, but let’s not forget that Fox banned Charlie from coming on the network from 2021-2024 and the same anchors crying on air tonight over losing “an amazing champion for free speech” are the same anchors who didn’t…
— Caroline Wren (@CarolineWren) September 11, 2025
