Cars.com, Peleton exercise bikes and mattress company Leesa Sleep withdrew their advertisements from Hannity’s program on Wednesday — a move reminiscent of last month’s advertiser boycott in response to revelations about Bill O’Reilly’s alleged sexual harassment.
In a rare interview with Huffington Post, Hannity accused liberal watchdog groups like Media Matters For America of trying “to take me out” by encouraging advertisers to jump ship. “This is a kill shot,” he said.
Hannity also said that he decided to stop pushing the conspiracy theory out of respect for Rich’s family. “Nobody tells me what to say on my show. They never have and frankly they never will,” Hannity said. “I’m not that type of person you can say, ‘Go on air and say this.'”
Still, four sources at Fox told CNNMoney that Hannity did face internal pressure to back off the Rich story, even if he made the decision to do so on his own. Suzanne Scott, the network’s president of programming, and other executives met with Hannity on Tuesday and encouraged him to stop advancing the theory.
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