Fox News’ ‘Ingraham Angle’ Loses Advertiser After Guest Makes Homophobic Remark
A night after Republican Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was “so light in the loafers he floats off the ground” during an appearance on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, men’s personal health company hims announced that they would no longer advertise their products during the primetime Fox News program.
After progressive activist Jordan Uhl tweeted out a video of Patrick making the homophobic remark, progressive organization Sleeping Giants tweeted at the company and criticized it for advertising on Laura Ingraham’s show. This prompted the brand’s official Twitter account to respond.
“hims was founded to break down barriers for all people when it comes to obtaining quality healthcare,” the company tweeted. “As a brand for everyone, we strongly denounce intolerance of any kind and therefore you won’t find our ads on this program going forward.”
hims was founded to break down barriers for all people when it comes to obtaining quality healthcare. As a brand for everyone, we strongly denounce intolerance of any kind and therefore you won't find our ads on this program going forward.
— hims (@wearehims) April 30, 2019
Shortly after Patrick made those comments Monday night, Ingraham gave the lieutenant governor an opportunity to clean up the faux pas, likely knowing that it would be pounced on. Asking him what he meant by “light in the loafers,” Ingraham added: “You just meant not consequential, correct? You didn’t mean any pejorative, right?”
“No, no, no! What I mean is he flaps his arms a lot,” Patrick responded, further noting that he meant O’Rourke was a “lightweight.”
Sponsor problems are nothing new for Ingraham. The Ingraham Angle has been suffering through a yearlong sustained ad boycott that began in earnest after Ingraham publicly taunted Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg after several colleges rejected him. The boycott gained additional fuel in subsequent months when she likened detention centers for migrant children to “summer camps” and said massive “demographic changes” due to immigration made it “seem like the America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore.”
Ingraham, meanwhile, isn’t the only Fox News opinion host struggling with advertiser backlash. A wave of companies dropped Tucker Carlson’s program after he said last December that immigration makes America “poorer and dirtier.” Carlson saw even more advertisers flee in March after Media Matters unearthed audio of his appearances on shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge’s radio show that found Carlson making inflammatory and offensive remarks.
We reached out to Fox News for comment on hims dropping Ingraham’s program and will update this post if we hear back.
