Did Jessica Tarlov Get Fired From Fox’s The Five?

Jessica Tarlov is one of the co-hosts of The Five on Fox News.

She started at Fox News as a contributor in 2017 and was named a co-host on The Five in early 2022.

There are rumors about Jessica Tarlov leaving The Five or being fired by Fox.

The first rumors sparked on X in February 2024.

“Jessica Tarlov has been released by FOX,” user @DougWahl1 calimed on X (formerly Twitter) states. “She apparently was too successful at making her left leaning points, and showing up Jesse Walters.”

The post received 1 million views on X in less than 24 hours.

After @DougWahl1’s post on X went viral, Irena Briganti, Senior Executive Vice President for Corporate Communications at Fox News Media, stated, “This is completely false.”

In case you didn’t know, Jesse Watters is also a TV host who works for Fox.

Over the years, Tarlov and Watters have engaged in several on-air disagreements.

For more on their dynamic, you may find this video insightful.

So, did Jessica Tarlov get fired from Fox’s The Five?

It certainly sounds like a juicy rumor. Small problem: It’s not true. Jessica Tarlov has not been fired, despite a post on X on Feb. 8. However, in the past, she was absent from The Five for various reasons.

For instance, Tarlov took maternity leave from Fox News’ The Five following the birth of her second daughter, Teddy Tarlov McKenna, in April 2024.

Tarlov announced her temporary departure on social media, stating, “Will be on maternity leave for [the] next few months, so to the haters and the losers, enjoy the break! I know I will with my girls.”

Note – her first daughter, Cleo, was born in December 2021.

The father of her daughters is hedge fund executive Brian McKenna.

Tarlov and Brian McKenna wed in 2021.

She returned to The Five in July 2024.

“So excited to be back from maternity leave! And what a week,” she wrote on X on July 15, 2024. “Teddy and Cleo are in great hands and see you on the Five from the RNC.”

Jessica has been open about the challenges of balancing her career and motherhood.

In an interview with Carry Media, she discussed the emotional complexities of the postpartum period.

“While you look like you’ve got everything together to the outside world, and on TV, there’s an internal struggle going on that needs your time and attention,” Tarlov said in the interview.

Tarlov Hits Back at President Trump After He Demands She Gets Fired

In March 2026, Trump said:

“I watch Jessica, and I’m not a fan. And she uses fake numbers. She’ll give, ‘Well, he’s only polling 42%.’ That’s not right. Polling very high, actually.”

“Was so bummed to miss the show today,” Jessica Tarlov later replied. “But I definitely would’ve said he’s even inflating his numbers to 42%!”

Two years of Truth Social attacks

That March exchange was a rerun. The president has aimed at Tarlov on Truth Social since at least June 2025, when a segment on The Five about his poll numbers set him off.

“Why does Fox News allow failed TV personality Jessica Tarlov to ‘soil’ The Five?” he wrote on June 20, 2025, as Audacy reported.

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About five weeks later, a shorter one.

At 5:13 p.m. on July 29, 2025, while she was live in a segment about victims of a New York City gun attack, the president wrote:

“I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov of THE FIVE. A real loser!!! DJT”.

April 2026 brought something closer to an order.

On the evening of April 6, he addressed the network’s bosses by title:

“For Fox executives only, take Jessica Tarlov off the air,” per Barrett Media.

In the same message he claimed “People cannot stand watching her,” as TheWrap quoted it, and network reps did not immediately answer TheWrap’s request for comment.

What strikes me about the March appearance in the section above (the one where Tarlov was off for the day and replied on X) is how mild his tone was in person, mild for him at least, since he told her co-hosts at the table that “I’m sure she’s a lovely person, she’s just not for me,” a line The Daily Beast printed about two weeks before the memo to executives.

Did the channel act on it? Fox never answered him in public. She stayed on the show.

Gas prices on election night

Another round landed on Election Day 2026, November 3.

Hours before he blamed the network outright for his party’s losses, Trump went after Tarlov’s voice and added an insult about her intelligence, in capital letters.

Gutfeld recited on air a text he said came from the president, with more gripes about her comments on gas prices. Tarlov answered on X that “reality is a tricky thing and he should get better at dealing with it”.

Cheeky? Sure.

The gas point was what set him off, by her account: she had called prices at the pump the highest on any Election Day.

Three more years at the desk

None of it cost her the chair.

In September 2026 Tarlov signed new contract extension with Fox News.

“It’s always a great affirmation of your seat at the table,” she later said.

Fox has disclosed neither the pay nor the length of the deal, so the three-year figure depends of that one interview, and the network has published no salary figure at all. On X she put it shorter: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Why would a conservative channel re-up its loudest Democrat for three more years?

Audience math explains part of it, because on The Breakfast Club in the 2024 race Tarlov claimed that “over 20% of the viewers are liberals” and that The Five draws more independents than any rival network, and a show with that mix has a commercial reason to want a Democrat at the table.

Off camera it is friendlier than the on-air rows suggest, at least as she tells it. She told Marie Claire that Watters and Gutfeld care about her as a person, and once, after Gutfeld called her emotional on air, she shot back that HR watches the show.

In July 2026, as The Five neared its 15th anniversary, she told People: “I have the coolest job in media for a liberal, just hands down,” a remark TheWrap quoted.

The $30 million lawsuit she won in court

The closest thing to a real threat to her job came from a courtroom.

In March 2024, on The Five, Tarlov said Tony Bobulinski’s legal fees had been paid by a Trump super PAC.

The next day she told viewers she had seen no indication those payments covered his legal fees, and that he denied it (Law&Crime has her full correction).

Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, and his lawyer Stefan Passantino sued her for $30 million on March 28, 2024, and they left Fox itself out of the complaint.

On November 26, 2024, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken dismissed the case and ordered Bobulinski to pay her attorney’s fees under New York’s anti-SLAPP law (a statute meant to stop lawsuits that punish public speech).

“The allegation that Bobulinski’s attorney’s fees were paid by a Trump PAC is not defamatory,” Oetken wrote in his opinion.

Hawaii

One scare from this summer had a dull answer.

In mid-August 2026 viewers noticed her empty seat, and PJ Media reported she was on vacation in Hawaii with her husband, after she posted photos from the trip on Instagram over the August 15 to 16 weekend.

Its update said she was back on The Five that Thursday.

Scares and replies, 2024 to 2026

Most of people who search her name want one answer, so I lined up the dates in one column: the result look the same in each row, and she is still on the show.

Date	What set it off	Outcome
February 2024	Viral X claim	Fox: “completely false”
March 2024	Bobulinski $30 million lawsuit	Dismissed in November 2024
April 2024	Maternity leave	Back in July 2024
June 2025	The “soil” message	Stayed on The Five
July 2025	“A real loser” message	No change at Fox
March 2026	His remarks on The Five	Her 42% joke on X
April 2026	Demand to Fox executives	No public reply
August 2026	Hawaii vacation	Back that Thursday
September 2026	Contract up for renewal	Extension, reportedly three years
November 2026	Election night attack	Reply about gas prices

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