From Vanity Fair (paywalled) https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/tucker-carlson-fox-news-rupert-murdoch

A new theory has emerged. According to the source, Fox Corp. chair Rupert Murdoch removed
Carlson over remarks Carlson made during a speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th
Anniversary gala on Friday night. Carlson laced his speech with religious overtones that even
Murdoch found too extreme, the source, who was briefed on Murdoch’s decision-making, said.
Carlson told the Heritage audience that national politics has become a manichean battle between
“good” and “evil.” Carlson said that people advocating for transgender rights and DEI programs
want to destroy America and they could not be persuaded with facts. “We should say that and stop
engaging in these totally fraudulent debates…I’ve tried. That doesn’t work,” he said. The answer,
Carlson suggested, was prayer. “I have concluded it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of
your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future, and I hope you will,” he said. “That stuff freaks
Rupert out. He doesn’t like all the spiritual talk,” the source said.
Carlson declined to comment. A spokesperson for Fox Corp. declined to comment.
It’s been reported that Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott
made the decision to fire Carlson on Friday night. Another source, a person close to Murdoch, has
said something similar to me. Scott informed Carlson of the decision on Monday morning.
Rupert Murdoch was perhaps unnerved by Carlson’s messianism because it echoed the end-times
worldview of Murdoch’s ex-fiancée Ann Lesley Smith, the source said. In my May cover story, I
reported that Murdoch and Smith called off their two-week engagement because Smith had told
people Carlson was “a messenger from God.” Murdoch had seen Carlson and Smith discuss
religion firsthand. In late March, Carlson had dinner at Murdoch’s Bel Air vineyard with Murdoch
and Smith, according to the source. During dinner, Smith pulled out a bible and started reading
passages from the Book of Exodus, the source said. “Rupert just sat there and stared,” the source
said. A few days after the dinner, Murdoch and Smith called off the wedding. By taking Carlson off
the air, Murdoch was also taking away his ex’s favorite show.
Smith did not respond to a request for comment.
The 92-year-old mogul’s broken engagement is part of a string of erratic decisions he has made of
late that raises questions about Murdoch’s leadership of his media empire. According to sources,
executives at Fox are worried about Murdoch’s unsteady hand at the wheel of the company. “It’s
like the King is senile but no one wants to say anything,” the source said. According to two
sources, Fox settled with Dominion moments before the trial was set to begin because Fox’s
lawyers didn’t want Murdoch to testify in public. “They were hoping and praying to settle for
months, but they didn’t want to pay up,” the second source said. Once the trial began, the lawyers
told Fox execs that Murdoch would be “disgraced on the stand, run out of the boardroom, and his
testimony will expose him as a lunatic sliding into senility.” (The person close to Murdoch
disputed this. “Rupert was very well prepared to testify.”)