Fox News Cuts Ties With Bob Beckel


The Fox News Channel and Bob Beckel have parted ways.

The network has officially put an end to its employment relationship with the political analyst who since July 2011, was one of the regular co-hosts of the hit Monday-through-Friday roundtable show The Five. Beckel began appearing on FNC in 2000.

The suspenders-wearing Beckel last appeared on The Five in mid-February. He had been on leave for back surgery and subsequently went into rehab for an addiction to pain pills. While he was still active on The Five, Beckel often talked on the air about his prior struggles with substance abuse.

Fox Executive Bill Shine today issued a statement about the Bob Beckel situation.

“We tried to work with Bob for months, but we couldn’t hold The Five hostage to one man’s personal issues. He took tremendous advantage of our generosity, empathy and goodwill and we simply came to the end of the road with him. Juan Williams and Geraldo Rivera will be among those rotating on the show for the near future.”

A liberal Democrat and a strong Obama supporter, Bob Beckel had previously gotten himself in trouble for both uttering racial slurs and swearing on the air during The Five telecasts. A former official at the U.S. State Department in the Carter administration, Beckel’s main claim to fame is managing Walter Mondale’s presidential campaign to a 49-state loss to Ronald Reagan. Regular viewers of The Five couldn’t help but notice that Beckel, apparently playing the role as the show’s resident curmudgeon, often seemed to come to the set wholly unprepared for each episode’s discussions and tended to engage in incoherent ramblings to perhaps compensate.

In July 2014, the pundit called then-Bachelorette Andi Dorfman a slut during a Five broadcast. He also gave one of his fellow panelists the finger during a November 2014, installment of the show. To his credit, however, he inexplicably somehow convinced co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle to kiss him on the lips around midnight during the live 2015 New Year’s Eve coverage from Times Square on Fox News.

It will be interesting to see if any of his former Five co-panelists mention his departure from the FNC roster on this evening’s broadcast, a circumstance in which the show certainly hasn’t suffered since he’s been gone from the studio set. “The Five is currently No. 1 in all of basic cable at 5 p.m. for the month of June, and ratings in the 25-54 demo are up 8 percent since Feb. 16,” Politico reported.

In addition to separating from Bob Beckel, Fox News also this week reportedly ended its contract with Sarah Palin for the second time.

[Photo by Noam Galai / Getty Images Entertainment]

Update: Bob Beckel took to Twitter to respond to his changed status with Fox News.

Further update: The Five co-host Dana Perino made this brief announcement about Bob Beckel on June 26.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP6mLDp1VtA

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