Barstool Sports personality Francis Ellis has opened up about how people reacted to the viral hot mic moment that criticized Fox News after appearing on it repeatedly as a guest.
Chatting with colleagues after a podcast episode in December, Ellis blasted the network for “trading hate,” a day after making a QAnon reference on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.” The full audio was posted online by the podcast producer and quickly took it down.
This week, Ellis spoke about the fallout from the slip-up with Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini on the podcast “CEO Token.”
“Later that night,” he told Nardini, “I got a text from [Barstool personality] John Rich said, ‘Hey, man, I don’t know how this happened. But we did ‘The Rundown’ and included everything like 20 minutes of you talking on Fox News.’”
“I thought he was rude to me,” Ellis said.
He didn’t. And soon, it was everywhere, and Ellis was getting requests for comments and attacks from “both sides” of the political aisle, he said.
“The left takes this thing – the outlet of the left – and spins it as … ‘Here is someone from the ranks who speaks against the establishment. And even if he speaks the truth, and says that he is terrible, he still admits that he will accept the job, said Ellis. “And the right is like, ‘Fuck this guy,’ you know, ‘he’s blowing up a network that’s giving him great opportunities but he’s still saying he’s going to accept the job.'”
Ellis said there was a lot of hatred towards his wife, which he invoked in the leaked audio. In the clip, he says he talked to his wife about his latest appearance on Fox News “because I was disappointed in myself,” and “she was like, ‘Let’s be honest, like, do you want to work with this? Whore?'”
At another point in the December clip, Ellis suggested he would consider accepting a job at Fox News if offered. In an interview this week, Ellis insisted it was a joke.
“I think anyone with ears would understand,” he told Nardini.
Watch the interview below.