Sean Hannity’s Biggest Controversies, Explained

Like former colleague Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity has brought Fox News both good ratings and bad press. The longtime Hannity host, however, might not care about the latter.

“Whatever chip you’re supposed to have that actually gives a s**t what people say, I don’t have it,” Hannity told the New York Post in 2021. “I don’t live my life based on what people say.”

Given the number of controversies against him, though, perhaps he should start caring. We’re chronologizing our picks for the biggest of those issues below.

1989: Hannity makes anti-gay comments on radio show

In April 1989, Hannity shared homophobic viewpoints on a morning call-in show he hosted on KCSB, a radio station at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He called AIDS “a gay disease,” likened gay sex to “playing in a sewer,” said gay people “are filled with hatred and bigotry” and have a “lower [form] of behavior” and derided a lesbian mother who called in to his show, per Media Matters transcripts.

Hannity expressed regret over those comments in an October 2017 statement to The Independent. “I was young and stupid with no clue how to do a show,’ he said. “I’m actually very libertarian on social issues and people’s personal lives. I’m now 55 years old, and yes, I freely admit the comments in my 20s were ignorant and embarrassing.”

2016: Hannity questions Hillary Clinton’s health with sketchy evidence

In August 2016, Hannity devoted a week of his Fox News show to claims that then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was secretly in poor health. He even hosted a “Fox News Medical A-Team” panel to weigh in on Clinton’s health, though those panelists hadn’t examined Clinton personally and were basing their assessments on photos and online allegations, according to Vox.

On his show, Hannity showed a photo he claimed “shows Hillary Clinton apparently needing assistance to climb a flight of stairs at a campaign stop back in February,” even though Getty Images had noted the photo was taken after Clinton had stumbled and been caught by Secret Service agents, per The Washington Post.

Hannity also called Clinton’s head movement in one video “seizure-esque” and showed a photo of her and a Secret Service agent who, the Fox News anchor claimed, was holding a diazepam pen often used for treating seizures. Snopes, however, said the device appeared to be a flashlight.

2017: Advertisers boycott Hannity over his Seth Rich reporting

In May 2017, the companies Crowne Plaza Hotels, Cars.com, Ring.com, Leesa Mattress, USAA, Peloton, and Casper all announced they were pulling their advertising from Hannity’s Fox News show over his coverage of Seth Rich’s murder, according to The Hollywood Reporter. On Hannity, the anchor had been suggesting Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer murdered in July 2016, had been killed because he leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

Fox News later paid the Rich family a multimillion-dollar settlement over its coverage of Seth’s murder, but Aaron Rich, Seth’s brother, told The New York Times he’d never gotten an apology from Hannity. “He never got back to me to say, ‘Sorry for ruining your family’s life and pushing something there’s no basis to,’” Aaron said. “Apparently, ‘sorry’ is a hard five-letter word for him.”

2017: Hannity’s Roy Moore commentary gets blowback

In November 2017, Hannity expressed skepticism about the allegations that then-Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore approached, dated, or initiated sexual contact with teenagers, including a 14-year-old, in the 1970s, according to The New York Times. Reporting on the Moore allegations on his show, Hannity wondered aloud how the American people could “ascertain what is true and not true.”

He also asserted some of Moore’s alleged interactions were consensual — and had to later clarify he wasn’t referring to the 14-year-old — and a legal analyst on the show said people “undoubtedly” make false claims of sexual assault to get money.

In the ensuing controversy, Keurig and Volvo Car USA threatened to pull advertising from the show.

2018: Hannity’s connection to Michael Cohen is revealed

Under orders from a U.S. district judge in April 2018, President Donald Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen revealed that Hannity had been a client of his. That confession sparked ethics concerns, since Hannity had defended Cohen on air but hadn’t disclosed their connection, per NBC News.

“Michael never represented me in any matter, I never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer, I never received an invoice from Michael, I never paid legal fees to Michael,” Hannity said on his AM radio show following the revelation. “We definitely had attorney-client privilege because I asked him for that but, you know, he never sent me a bill or an invoice nor did I actually officially retain him.”

Hannity later said that he “might have handed [Cohen] 10 bucks” and that their conversations were “almost exclusively about real estate,” NBC News reported.

2018: Hannity’s appearance at Trump rally enrages Fox News staffers

At a midterm campaign rally Donald Trump held in Missouri in November 2018, Hannity took the stage — despite saying on Twitter he wouldn’t — and slammed the “fake news” organizations covering the event, even though a Fox News team was present.

CNN Business reported Fox News staffers were outraged by Hannity’s appearance. “People throughout the company think a new line was crossed,” a senior Fox News employee told the outlet.

“It disturbs me to my core,” said another senior Fox News employee. “I am so f**king mad.”

A third employee said, “We were all told that Hannity was going to interview the president, but no one that I spoke with expected what happened last night. I’m aghast, as are a number of other people.”

In a statement, Fox News said it “does not condone any talent participating in campaign events” and that Hannity’s rally appearance “was an unfortunate distraction and has been addressed.”

On Twitter, Hannity said his appearance onstage was not planned, that he was surprised and honored when Trump invited him to speak, and he was not referring to his Fox News colleagues in his remarks.

2020: Hannity reverses earlier stance that COVID-19 is a “hoax”

In March 2020, Hannity told Fox News viewers that his program had “always taken the coronavirus seriously” and “never called the virus a hoax,” as Vox reported. But as the same site pointed out, Hannity did just that days earlier, when he reported on the coronavirus headlines. “This is scaring the living hell out of people — I see it, again, as like, ‘Let’s bludgeon Trump with this new hoax,’” he said then. He also claimed in his show there was a “coronavirus hysteria,” per Vox.

2021: Hannity is accused of spreading “defamatory falsehoods” in Dominion lawsuit

In its March 2021 defamation lawsuit against Fox News, Dominion Voting Systems listed Hannity as one of the Fox News personalities who, with “their chosen guests,” allegedly spread “defamatory falsehoods” about Dominion’s role in the 2020 presidential election, per The Guardian.

Later, in a deposition given under oath, Hannity said he “did not believe it for one second” when former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell said on his show that Dominion machines were switching votes, according to The New York Times. Fox News ended up settling with Dominion for $787.5 million.

2022: House Jan. 6 committee asks Hannity about January 6 Capitol riot

As a House select committee investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol, Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney wrote a letter asking to speak to Hannity in January 2022, as NPR reported at the time.’

In their letter, the representatives said Hannity had texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on December 21, 2020, to say, “We can’t lose the entire WH counsels office [sic]. I do NOT see January 6 happening the way he is being told.”

The letter also mentioned Hannity texting Meadows on January 5, 2021, to express being “very worried about the next 48 hours,” according to NBC News.

Thompson and Cheney told Hannity it appeared he “may have had a conversation directly with President Trump on the evening of January 5th (and perhaps at other times) regarding his planning for January 6th,” and they said they wanted to speak to him about “any conversations you had with Mr. Meadows or others about any effort to remove the President under the 25th Amendment.”

An attorney for Hannity said the anchor would “respond as appropriate,” per The Guardian.