In a movement that seems purposefully reminiscent of the grassroots campaign to convince advertisers to drop The O’Reilly Factor over sexual harassment claims against host Bill O’Reilly (a campaign that surely had some hand in him eventually getting fired from Fox News), people are now pressuring companies that advertise during Sean Hannity’s Fox News show to drop their support over his recent comments regarding Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore and his alleged history of sexual misconduct with multiple underage girls. A few days ago, Hannity seemingly indicated that it’s alright for a 14-year-old girl to have consensual sex with a 32-year-old man, prompting a huge social media backlash that eventually drove Hannity to explain that he had misspoken.
Mistake or not, it was merely the latest in a long line of bullshit to come from Hannity, who had a hand in spreading a ridiculous and mean-spirited conspiracy theory about the death of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich and is also such a generally unpleasant person that angelic songster Josh Groban once had to dunk on him on Twitter. A couple of advertisers pulled out of Hannity’s show in response to the Seth Rich garbage, but over the weekend a list of Hannity’s advertisers has begun to circulate again, with many of Hannity’s critics publicly asking the companies how they can continue to put ads on the show of a guy who is having a hard time denouncing an alleged pedophile just because he’s a Republican.
Newsweek says that five advertisers have either pulled out or confirmed that they were already not supporting Hannity and won’t be in the future, specifically Keurig, Realtor.com, genetics company 23 And Me, clothing company Eloquii, and vitamin seller Nature’s Bounty.