News

Tomi Lahren Is Suing Glenn Beck And The Blaze

by Seth Millstein
The Blaze

Alt-right firebrand and former TV host Tomi Lahren is suing Glenn Beck and The Blaze, Beck's media site, for wrongful termination, according to the Dallas Morning News. The 24-year-old, who filed the lawsuit Friday in Dallas County, argues that the Blaze canceled her show because she came out as pro-choice on The View in March. Bustle has reached out to The Blaze for comment.

Lahren began her media career as the host of On-Point With Tomi Lahren on One America News Network. She started hosting her own show on the Blaze in 2015, and her popularity on the right grew rapidly during the presidential campaign. For most of her short career, Lahren has been a standard-issue Trump supporter — comparing Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan, criticizing Syrian refugees because they "run away" from conflict, insisting that undocumented immigrants be referred to as "illegals," calling her critics "snowflakes," and so on.

However, Lahren crossed a major line on the far-right in March, when she came out in favor of abortion.

"I'm pro-choice, and here's why," Lahren said during an appearance on The View. "I am a Constitutional — you know, someone who loves the Constitution, I am someone that's [sic] for limited government. I can't sit here and be a hypocrite and say I'm for limited government but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies. I can sit here and say that, as a Republican. "

This made Lahren an enemy to many on the right. Some were simply outraged that she, an ostensible conservative, expressed support for a woman's right to choose. Some anti-choice conservatives were offended at her suggestion that they were guilty of hypocrisy, while others pointed out that Lahren herself had said a lot of anti-abortion things prior to her appearance on The View.

Pretty soon, the Blaze canceled Lahren's show, and the New York Post reported that she had been "banned permanently" from the media site.

In her lawsuit, Lahren alleges that the Blaze acted improperly in terminating her two-year contract, which was set to expire in September. Beck allegedly knew of her pro-choice view and allegedly "never took any issue with it" before the controversy, according to the suit. But after she made those comments publicly, her employer allegedly ordered her to "go dark" on social media, the suit claims, and coworkers placed yellow caution tape in the shape of an "X" on her dressing room. Lahren also claims that despite pulling her show from the air, the Blaze offered to continue paying her, "presumably hoping they could find an exit strategy to sanitize their unlawful conduct." (The Blaze did not respond to Bustle's request for comment.)

"Beck and others associated [The Blaze] have continued to knowingly, intentionally, and/or consciously attack Plaintiff in wrongful retaliation for Plaintiff having expressed her personal viewpoint on a public television show," Lahren is alleging in her lawsuit.

In a statement to the Dallas Morning News, Lahren's lawyer likened his client to "an eagle that feels like its had its wings clipped."