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Until last Monday he could boast of being the most watched man on American television. But the scandal over the lies surrounding the electoral fraud of 2020 has ended up costing him his head at Fox, the channel that kept him on staff against all odds. Through the back door comes a character as revered by conservative hosts as hated by progressives, accused of misogyny and anti-Semitic, of attacking blacks, immigrants and women alike, the product of a conservative home and married for 31 years to a woman who pushed him towards a religion with which he does not fully commune.

On Monday, several American media wondered how Tucker Carlson (San Francisco, 1969) had not fallen before. In his Fox days, he went so far as to say that Iraqis were "semi-literate primitive monkeys" and that immigrants who come to the United States make "the country poorer, dirtier and more divided." He considers transgender people a "cancer for the country" and maintains that teachers who intend to educate about sexual orientation in class "should be beaten up."

It was something you could see coming. From his years at a boarding school in Rhode Island, at just over 14 years old, his classmates already perceived him as a "self-confident conservative who was not afraid to speak his mind." He stood out for being an attractive young man and for his ability to enter a room and dominate conversation. He was very skilled in the art of debate and even then began to wear his most characteristic attire for years: the bow tie.

Tucker Carlson (San Francisco, 1969)AP

He never went hungry or in need. Carlson comes from a wealthy Northern California family. His father pursued a career in journalism and then politics, a Republican who headed the U.S. Information Agency under Ronald Reagan, and later served under George H. Bush as U.S. ambassador to the Seychelles.

His parents separated when he was only 6 years old and his mother, an artist, went to France in search of a bohemian style of life. Neither Tucker nor her younger brother, Buckley, had much contact with her until her death in 2011. Lisa McNear describes her as a "totally strange situation" that she never talks about because "it wasn't a part of my life at all."

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Carlson tried to follow in his father's footsteps by working for a government agency. He tried to join the CIA in the early 90s but was rejected. That's when he opted for journalism. Despite eventually becoming one of the idols of the extreme right in the United States, he tried his luck with CNN in his first experience on television. It also went through progressive networks such as PBS and MSNBC, but did not finish taking off. He also wrote for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Esquire or The Daily Beast before making the jump to Fox News in 2009.

MURDOCH, HIS FORMER BOSS

Communication mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, has dispensed with his star presenter because of the reputational damage he has done to the network.

Various sources calculate a fortune around 300 million dollars, amassed as a result of the popularity of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the space he directed at Fox from 2016 until his dismissal last Monday. That and the lucrative publishing contracts he has signed in recent years.

Part of it has invested in property. He has a home on Gasparilla Island, in southwest Florida, among a total of 13 homes, including one in Washington DC that he put on the market in 2020 for three million dollars. He also likes expensive and sporty cars. It has an important collection, including models of Genesis, Porsche and Audi.

AGAINST ABORTION

He met his wife at St. George's College. Susan Andrews was the daughter of the principal and parish priest of the school, a man later investigated for sexual abuse of a teacher in the 80s. They married in August 1991 in the chapel of the same school and have four children, a relationship he referred to as complex. "It's never easy because men and women fundamentally don't understand each other," she said. "That's why marriage makes you grow, because you don't really understand the other person, so you have to try every day to decipher what the person is saying."

It was she who brought him closer to the Episcopal Church of Anglican Communion, although the journalist maintains that he grew up with secular beliefs and that his approaches align more with those of conservative Christians in the US: opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage. "We still go to the Episcopal Church for all sorts of complicated reasons, but I really despise it in so many ways," he once said. Always controversial, always a hard pill to swallow.

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