Fox News has canceled ads for MyPillow after founder Mike Lindell “ran out of money” following the defamation lawsuit over his voting machines.
Lindell confirmed in a video on his TV network on Friday that his company had been dropped and claimed he had not been given a reason why.
However, sources say so Rolling stone the real reason for the cancellation was that Lindell did not pay for the commercials.
Insiders said the ads had been “paused due to the failure of Mike Lindell to finance the commercials” – an issue they said had been “extensively” communicated.
“Once their bill is paid, we will be happy to accept their advertisements,” the source added.
Mike Lindell’s MyPillow ads have been axed from Fox News amid claims he can no longer afford to pay for them
The election conspiracy theorist was one of Fox’s biggest sources of advertising revenue
MyPillow was previously one of the largest advertisers with Fox News, according to data from progressive watchdog Media Matters.
Viewers of Sean Hannity’s show and of Tucker Carlson’s when he was on the air at the broadcaster will be familiar with the commercials, which often ran during times when other advertisers were trying to stay away.
Lindell speculated on his channel that he was “canceled” by Fox ahead of Monday’s Iowa caucuses because of his denial of the 2020 election or his association with right-wing commentator Lou Dobbs, who was fired by Fox.
“They know my brand is there, along with our great real President Donald Trump,” Lindell said.
“Maybe it’s because I brought Lou Dobbs onto my Lindell TV Network this week, but everything is just alarming and suspicious. Why just say “you’re cancelled”.’
He also begged viewers for support. Lindell has been outspoken about his financial troubles, which began after he peddled the conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.
Declaring that the company had been “decimated,” he told DailyMail.com that he had lost about $200 million in partnership deals after major brands including Walmart and Bed Bath and Beyond pulled their products from his shelves.
He also faces mounting legal debts from defamation lawsuits filed by the voting machine companies he claims orchestrated the “fraud.”
Lawyers for the entrepreneur confirmed that Lindell, whom they represented in lawsuits filed by Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems, is owed millions of dollars.
Lindell has been outspoken about his financial troubles since spreading the conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump
Since releasing the conspiracy theory, Lindell has been embroiled in expensive legal battles and lost out on partnerships with major retailers, costing his company hundreds of millions of dollars.
Last year, the attorneys filed a motion to quit as his representative, citing failure to pay their fees.
Lindell said he understood their decision and said he is “out of money.” He praised his lawyers as courageous and said he regretted not being able to pay their fees.
“We lost everything, every cent,” Lindell told NBC News. “It’s all gone.”
Smartmatic has filed a defamation lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion and Lindell is a defendant in a similar $1.3 billion lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, which also targets Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.
In April, Fox News settled a lawsuit brought by Dominion with a $787.5 million payment to the company. The broadcaster has since tried to get things under control statements of support for election conspiracies, which Lindell has refused to do.
In addition, the bedding magnate was ordered to pay $5 million to a software developer who determined that the MyPillow CEO’s data provided to experts was not related to the 2020 presidential election.
Robert Zeidman sued Lindell for the promised millions as part of a ‘Prove Mike Wrong Challenge’.
MyPillow’s founder had sold a data set that he said proved election interference and promised the money to anyone who could prove the data did not come from the 2020 presidential election.
Voter machine company Smartmatic has filed a defamation lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion, and Lindell is a defendant in a similar $1.3 billion lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems
Lindell stands by his claims of election fraud. In October, he had his Wi-Fi monitoring devices banned from polling places in Kentucky. He claimed that the so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ would help combat voter fraud by revealing the presence of Wi-Fi connections at election booths
In October, Lindell had his $500 Wi-Fi monitoring devices, which he nicknamed WMDs, banned from election booths in Kentucky.
MyPillow’s CEO said he developed the products, which detect and identify Wi-Fi networks, to make elections more secure.
He claims that the presence of Wi-Fi in polling booths could indicate that votes are being tampered with through internet-connected machines.
However, the devices, which monitored boxes attached to drones, were likely deemed illegal by state officials.