Tucker Carlson out at Fox News

Tucker Carlson is out at Fox News.

A statement from Fox News Media released Monday morning says the network and their top-rated primetime host are parting ways.

“FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,” reads the statement. “We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Carlson started as a contributor at Fox in 2009 before becoming the network’s most popular personality after replacing Bill O’Reilly in the prime-time lineup in 2016.

Neither the network nor Carlson have offered an explanation as to why he was leaving.

Fox News recently agreed to pay nearly $800 million to settle a lawsuit over its airing of 2020 election lies. The abrupt end to the Dominion Voting Systems case quashed any possibility of Carlson, or network founder Rupert Murdoch, having to testify publicly on the matter.

Carlson’s name came up during the case, mainly because of email and text messages that were revealed as part of the lawsuit. In some of them, Carlson privately criticized former President Donald Trump, saying he hated him passionately.

The host was also recently named in a lawsuit filed by Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who claimed she had been pressured by lawyers to give a misleading testimony in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit.

The final episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight aired on Friday. The network says they will replace his 8 p.m. time slot with Fox News Tonight, an interim show “helmed by rotating Fox News personalities,” until a new host is named.

News of Carlson’s departure came the same day as longtime CNN host Don Lemon announcing he had been fired by that network.

With files from The Associated Press