According to reports, Laura Ingraham’s new primetime show is already causing issues at Fox News–and it doesn’t even air for another week.
“The Ingraham Angle” will premiere in the network’s 10 PM time slot beginning October 30, but according to The Daily Beast some Fox staffers are bristling at the idea of working on Ingraham’s show.
Sources paint the picture of a “tyrant” who is notoriously difficult to work with and sometimes verbally abusive toward her staff. Two former employees of her national radio show recalled separate incidents where Ingraham threw physical objects at her employees when she was angry with them. (RELATED: Laura Ingraham: ‘We’re Gonnna Lose Every F**king Station We Have’)
“Have you ever seen The Devil Wears Prada?” a former producer for the radio show said. “That’s what it’s like, except it’s The Devil Does Radio and there are no redeeming qualities with her.”
A senior official at Fox News indicated that the network’s shows are very host-driven, meaning Ingraham’s staffers would be expected to work very closely with the demanding boss. Further, Ingraham has only brought over several staffers from her radio show, requiring Fox to reassign current staffers to her show.
Three Fox sources told The Daily Beast that staffers are “praying” they don’t get put on Ingraham’s show, with one staffer describing her as a “known tyrant.”
Ingraham did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comments, while Fox responded that the report is a, “a transparent, predictable and sexist attack from a left-wing website run by a CNN political analyst whose mandate it is to troll FOX News for traffic purposes on a daily basis.”
Not everyone The Daily Beast spoke to had negative things to say about Ingraham–some praised her media talent and said her behavior was always professional.
A.J. Rice, former executive producer, said, “None of these people behaved anything but professionally. And Laura was the gold standard. I don’t know what these people are talking about… People are actually using the word ‘tyrant’? That’s insane to me.”
“Laura persevered through some tough circumstances and a very competitive market to do just what she’d set out to do. And it was a great ride doing it—with lots of laughs, and yes, some fights,” asserted Lee Habeeb, another former executive producer and current Vice President of content for Salem Media Group.