Brands Pull Partnerships With Sean Hannity After Controversial Roy Moore Interview

By A.J. Katz 

Multiple news advertisers are once again at odds with Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity.

The conflict arose after Hannity interviewed controversial Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore on his radio show last week. Hannity asked Moore to address allegations detailed in a recent Washington Post story that he had sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl in the late 1970’s. The Fox News host seemed to describe the encounter as “consensual,” a comment that didn’t go over particularly well among many in the Twittersphere.

Hannity would later say, on a different Fox News program, that he misspoke and that he was referring to the other women who told the Post last week that Moore had dated them when they were 18 or 19 years old and Moore was in his early 30s.

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Moore denied the accusations during his appearance on Hannity’s show, and is now threatening to sue the Post.

Despite stating that he “misspoke,” multiple advertisers are severing ties with the No. 1 cable news program after they were targeted on Twitter over the weekend by Angelo Carusone, head of the liberal activist group Media Matters for America.

Carusone accused Hannity of attacking the women who are speaking out against sexual harassment.

The coffeemaker company Keurig tweeted over the weekend that it would avoid advertising on Hannity’s TV program after one Twitter user complained about the brand’s connection to the host.

Other brands who have parted ways with the program include 23 and Me, vitamin company Nature’s Bounty, and Loquii, a plus-size fashion company.

Realtor.com also tweeted over the weekend that it would pull its ads from the program, though it looks like that original tweet has been taken down.

 

 

Carusone has a history of battling with Fox News’s opinion hosts.

He was one of the first and loudest voices calling on advertisers to pull national ads from Bill O’Reilly‘s former Fox News program in light of sexual harassment allegations against the then-Fox News star.

The company fired O’Reilly back in April, due in part to this mass advertiser exodus, though O’Reilly continues to deny the harassment allegations.

This also isn’t the first time he has called for advertisers to part ways with Hannity in particular.

Back in May, After Hannity continued to push an unverified claim that the murder of former Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was ordered by the Clintons because of leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, Media Matters called for brands to pull their ads from his program, and published a list of his the program’s advertisers. USAA and Cars.com were two of 10 to announce it was pulling its spots from the show.

USAA eventually returned to the program after many of its consumers voiced opposition to the decision to pull spots from the show.

Some Hannity supporters are expressing their displeasure with Keurig in a unique way.

 

Keurig ceo Bob Gamgort sent the following note to company employees this morning regarding the Hannity saga:

 

*Update: On his radio show today (Monday), Hannity asked his supporters to stop smashing Keurig machines in protest of the brand’s move to pull its ads from his TV program.

“I accept the apology of the Keurig CEO. Frankly, I think they were victims of they group they knew nothing about,” Hannity said. “I feel sorry that they were dragged into politics.”

Hannity also made clear that he will replace the Keurig coffee machines smashed by his fans.

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