MAGA pillow magnate Mike Lindell claims Fox News “canceled” his MyPillow commercials because he recently hired former Fox Business star Lou Dobbs to host a show on his far-right media channel.
But the real story may not be so simple. A Fox News source with direct knowledge of the situation confirms that the network’s long-standing partnership with MyPillow has been paused because Lindell has been unable to pay for his commercials. The source added that clear communication had been made with Lindell’s media buying agency.
The network appeared to confirm later Friday that Lindell had not paid his bills. “Once payment is made to their account, we will be happy to accept their advertising,” a Fox News spokesperson told The Daily Beast.
This wouldn’t be the first time Lindell has been dropped because he couldn’t pay his bills. Lindell, who is currently facing $1 billion defamation lawsuits from voting software companies Dominion and Smartmatic over his election fraud conspiracies, saw his entire legal team quit last fall because he owed them millions of dollars.
Lindell admitted he had “no money” when his lawyers resigned, and Lindell’s firm dealt with financial problems and a perilous cash crunch. While his lawyers abandoned him, Lindell also admitted that American Express had reduced his company’s credit limit to $100,000 and that other banks had refused to lend to him. For several weeks last fall, MyPillow’s once-ubiquitous ads were nearly absent from television amid ongoing financial struggles.
However, Lindell insisted on Friday that Fox rejected his commercials because he hired Dobbs, the unapologetic Trump sycophant whom Fox fired in early 2021 — one day after Smartmatic sued the network over its 2020 election lies that Dobbs promoted. Happily on the air. Lindell also noted that the rescission of his ad was due to his unwavering loyalty to the “real president” (which, in his view, would be Trump) ahead of the 2024 election.
“Fox News has canceled MyPillow, and I don’t have the reasons why yet, and I can only say well, the caucuses are coming up on Monday, and they know my brand is well-branded with our real, great president, Donald Trump.” Lindell exclaimed on MAGA’s Steve Bannon’s podcast on Friday.
“You know, maybe it’s because I brought Lou Dobbs to my Lindell TV network this week and—but it’s all so worrying and suspicious. Why now? Suddenly, you’re cancelled,” Lindell continued. “I’m beside myself. I don’t even know what to say. It’s like you’re going after a company when your CEO is interested in helping save our country and securing our electoral platforms. It’s just annoying. It’s disgusting.”
The bigwig added that his media buyers told him Wednesday night that Fox News had rejected his commercials, but he waited a day for the network to give him a reason before going public. “It’s a complete cancellation,” he told Bannon.
Speaking with The Daily Beast on Friday, Lindell stressed that Dobbs is the main reason Fox is dropping his ads, noting that the former Fox star made his television debut on Lindell on Monday with a lengthy interview with Trump.
“The only variable this week was that Lou Dobbs started on Monday night — remember, Fox let Lou Dobbs go when talking about these election platforms,” he said. “I think it’s directly related to me speaking out for election platforms to get rid of machines, voting machines. Remember, Fox settled with Dominion and all that, but you know, I complain about Fox News and Newsmax all the time for not talking about elections. So that hasn’t changed because I I always do that.
He also speculated that Fox “fears competition” from his personal media outlet, suggesting that its nightly lineup that includes Dobbs and Emerald Robinson, a former Newsmax correspondent and vaccine conspiracy supporter, also played a role.
Claiming to have paid Fox News between $500,000 to $2 million each week over the past decade to run his ads, Lindell complained that it should be “almost illegal” to refuse to air his commercials if he was offering the network money.
However, according to a Fox News source familiar with the situation, Lindell has struggled to pay the conservative cable giant for months and has not paid for any ads running on Fox since August 2023. Lindell has recently made payments to the network, this insider said. But these were just to follow up on ads that ran during the summer, he said.
According to a text search, Fox News has not run a MyPillow ad on its airwaves since mid-December, suggesting it has been in violation of its contract with the network for several weeks now.
While getting rid of Lindell as an advertiser may stir up the fever swamps and election-denying extremist crowd, it likely won’t do much to hurt the top-rated cable channel’s bottom line. Last year, Fox News Media generated $1.4 billion in advertising revenue, and that number is sure to rise in 2024 during a chaotic and widely watched election season.
Ultimately, losing Lindell’s cash will be just a “drop in the bucket” for Fox News, network insiders said.