Tucker Carlson has again come under attack for remarks about Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
On Wednesday, the Fox News anchor told viewers of his Tucker Carlson Tonight show that the duchess was “fake” and her husband “brain dead”.
It followed calls from the royal couple for Spotify to address the “serious harms” that spreading false Covid information can cause, amid wider complaints about vaccine-sceptic views expressed on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Both Markle and her husband, as well as Joe Rogan, have million dollar contracts with the audio platform.
“We have continued to express our concerns to Spotify to ensure changes to its platform are made to help address this public health crisis,” said the pair in a statement on Sunday.
“We look to Spotify to meet this moment and are committed to continuing our work together as it does.”
Addressing the concerns, Mr Carlson said “in any case the pressure to censure Joe Rogan over his views is coming from other content providers on the site, and most of them are D-listers, you should know”.
“The other day that annoying fake duchess from LA and her brain-dead husband threatened to walk if Spotify refused to muzzle Joe Rogan,” said the Fox News host.
“But of course they don’t mean it ... these two grifters have a million dollar podcast deal with Spotify for essentially no work,” he continued, in reference to 35 minutes of content the pair have created so far on Spotify.
While it was not the first time Mr Carlson has taken aim at Meghan and her husband, dozens of social media users condemned his most recent comments.
Spotify has meanwhile promised to introduce a disclaimer for Covid minsinformation on the site.
“Jealous of their deal Tucker Carlson?” wrote a Twitter user on Thursday. “If Joe Rogan has no issues with a pre podcast disclaimer, what could your problem be other than pure envy? Your parents and family must be ashamed of you earning money just by being horrible.”
The Democratic Coalition, a political action group, meanwhile tweeted: “Nothing angers Tucker more than people who try to stop COVID misinformation – because that’s how he makes a living.”
On Thursday, an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience was uploaded to Spotify following an almost week-long hiatus amid criticism of both him and the audio platform for his content.
