Melissa Francis Claimed Fox News Fired her Over Wage Dispute, Received Teleprompter Message ‘You’ve Been Canceled’

Former Fox News host Melissa Francis disappeared from Fox airways in 2020 rather abruptly. She was a co-host of Fox New’s “Outnumbered” as well as hosting segments on Fox Business.

Francis is claiming that one Friday instead of getting her script on her teleprompter, she received a cancelation message “you’ve been canceled” on the screen, moments before she was set to go live.

On Friday, she sat down with another former anchor from fox Megyn Kelly, on Kelly’s SiriusXM show.

When Francis was fired, she was currently in negotiations with Fox News over a raise to match her male counterparts.

According to Fox News, her sudden disappearance was due to “program changes” related to the election. Francis and her lawyer dispute this. Francis and her lawyer Kevin Mintzer had filed a gender-based pay discrimination claim against the network at the time.

Francis told Kelly, on that fateful Friday, while she was prepping to do her 4 pm show, Mintzer notified her that the network was letting her go.

“He got a call and he said that my services were no longer needed on the air and I said, ‘Well, they can’t mean the show in 10 minutes because we all know you can’t get an anchor in the chair that quickly.’ You know, I’m gonna just go over and sit in my living room for my second show. And then if they want me not on tomorrow, whatever it is, that’s fine,” she told Kelly.

In her Covid studio, which was at her home, she got ready to go on air. She was surprised by the message she saw on the teleprompter, instead of her script she read, “You’ve been canceled”.

“And all of a sudden, everything went dead in my living room, just lights out, everything dead. And I was like, ‘Wow, OK. This is, this is how we’re doing this. Huh? Wow. I talked to the show staff afterward and they were like, ‘We weren’t told anything. We have no idea what happened.’ And they were left scrambling. I mean, all of a sudden this poor show team had no idea and they just yanked the electricity on their anchor,” she explained.

Her lawyer was on Kelly’s show as well. He told Kelly, “Those claims in my view, 100% led to her being taken off the air… without question.”

Francis took her dispute to the New York Department of Labor who in 2021 announced they were going to investigate. The Washington Post reported there was a settlement of $15 million reached between Francis and Fox News in June of this year.

At the time when Francis took her claim to the New York Department of Labor, Fox News issued a statement,  “We parted ways with Melissa Francis over a year and a half ago and her allegations were entirely without merit. We have also fully cooperated with the New York State Department of Labor’s investigation and look forward to the completion of this matter.”

The full interview can be seen below: