(The Hill) — Election denier and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is claiming that Fox News stopped running his company’s commercials on the network, asserting that he was “canceled” in an effort to silence him, a claim that Fox denies.
Lindell went public on Friday, sharing a video on X, where, apart from pleading for monetary support in a time of “cancelation,” he expressed suspicions that the network is “getting rid” of “his voice.”
In the Friday video, Lindell speculated that Fox is silencing him because his online platform TV/FrankSpeech online channel hired former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who recently interviewed former President Trump. Dobbs’s show was canceled three years ago. The MyPillow CEO also quipped it is because he wants to “secure our election platforms,” something that Fox also denies.
Fox disputes Lindell’s claims, saying that the removal of the ads was due to financial issues. “As soon as their account is paid, we would be happy to accept their advertising,” Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti told the Associated Press.
Lindell admitted that he owes $7.7 million to Fox and that, on average, he spent $1 million a week to run his ads on the network.
Lindell acknowledged in an interview in October that he owed two law firms that were defending him against lawsuits by Dominion and Smartmatic millions of dollars that he couldn’t pay, which is why they quit. He said MyPillow had been “decimated.”
But Lindell insisted Friday that MyPillow is “doing great.” He said it’s still running ads on another conservative network, Newsmax, and on his own platforms. But he conceded that losing Fox will hurt the business and said he would run his ads there again if Fox would take them.
“Obviously, it would be great if Fox said, ‘Hey, come back,’” Lindell said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.