Geraldo Rivera announced he was quitting Fox News after he was “fired” from the programme “The Five”.
“I’m not going to be on ‘The Five,’” Rivera said in a video posted to Twitter. “I’ve been fired from ‘The Five.’”
“And, as a result of that, I quit Fox,” he announced in the video filmed from a boat off Long Island’s Jones Beach.
Rivera said he will “have more to say” about leaving the network during the “Fox and Friends” program on Friday morning.
Rivera joined the network in 2001 and became a host of “The Five” a year later. The show became Fox’s most-watched program, averaging more than three million viewers last year despite airing in the late afternoon and not prime time.
His departure comes more than a week after the host said that his time at “The Five” was coming to an end as “being the odd man out isn’t always easy”.
But he would still be a “correspondent at large”, as his contract expires in January 2025.
The 79-year-old Rivera told Associated Press that “a growing tension that goes beyond editorial differences” were not “worth his time” at Fox.
“It has been a rocky ride but it has also been an exhilarating adventure that spanned quite a few years,” he told the agency. “I hope it’s not my last adventure,” he said that while it was his personal decision to leave,
He added that Fox management “didn’t race after me to say, ‘Geraldo, please come back’” following his decision to quit.” His final scheduled appearance is on Friday, June 30.
Rivera joined Fox News in 2001, where he spent his tenure serving as a war correspondent, weekend anchor, and host of the Fox Nation series Cops: All Access.
As a member of the roundtable cast of The Five, Rivera found his biggest audience yet. Along with Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr., Rivera was made an official member of The Five in 2022.
Rivera has at times been a combative figure on the talk show, which grapples with various current events, political issues, and pop culture news.
His long career in broadcasting previously included stints at CNBC and ABC News, as well as his self-titled talk show, which ran for 11 years beginning in 1987.
Once a supporter of former president Donald Trump, Rivera split up with him following the former president’s false claims over the 2020 presidential election.
He maintained that “under no circumstances do I think Donald Trump should be president of the United States again and that’s an important message I am committed to bringing to the American people between now and November 2024.”
He said even though the show’s large viewership would make it look like a prominent place for him to deliver that message, “you can imagine the friction that role by definition” would provoke.
“I’m 80 years old,” he said. “I don’t want the friction. ‘The Five’ is too intimate a place and it gets too personal.”
Two days later, Rivera wrote that he was “unsure” about his next career move, and followed up with a shirtless photo captioned, “80-year-old contemplating retirement.” He added, “I am 80 and I’ve been doing this for 52 years. The problem with retiring though is my restless energy when it concerns issues important to the American people. I feel the need to speak out, as long as some people want to listen.”
It comes amid increasingly bitter and frequent clashes between “The Five” co-hosts. Last month network star Greg Gutfeld mocked Rivera for criticizing Tucker Carlson following his ouster from the network.
Rivera had called Carlson’s conspiracy theories about the January 6 riots on the US Capitol “bulls**t”.
Rivera responded by saying that he has been “canceled” from upcoming show broadcasts and said he was “sure there’s a good reason” for keeping him away.
In a statement, Fox News said: “We reached an amicable conclusion with Geraldo over the past few weeks and look forward to celebrating him on Fox & Friends Friday morning which will be his last appearance on the network.”
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