This story just keeps getting better. After her show was canceled by TheBlaze, Tomi Lahren has since filed a lawsuit against her former employer, Glenn Beck, for wrongful termination.
Lahren claims she was removed from her show after she revealed her pro-choice viewpoints on ABC's "The View" in March.
The popular TV host went on to defend herself and her comments on Twitter over the following weeks. Her attorney Brian Lauten says Beck and others "embarked on a public smear campaign," taking away Lahren's access to her show's Facebook page, which has over 4.2 million followers.
TheBlaze, however, said in a statement they have continued to pay Lahren according to her contract.
In an interview on ABC's Nightline, Lahren told host Byron Pitts her job (her show) was her life, and she feels lost without it.
"When your outlet is taken away from you, when your catharsis is stripped from you, and you don't understand why you're so disappointed and you're so blindsided from it, it hurts," Lahren said.
Welcome, Tomi Lahren, to the Victim Olympics, population: you and every other snowflake.
I can't believe I recommended fellow conservatives listen to her just a few short months ago. It only takes a little bit of perspective to reveal the big problems with today's talking heads. Good thing, unlike Lahren, I have the capacity to admit when I'm wrong.
Part of me wants to be sympathetic. The 24-year-old skyrocketed to fame (and 4 million Facebook fans) in less than two years. Too bad Lahren's public persona isn't one that calls for sympathy.
So let's be unsympathetic... shall we?
Lahren has created a bad name for conservatives everywhere. She was coarse, unlikeable, and she didn't listen. Then, she called pro-life constitutionalists hypocrites. You can read more about that, and why her firing had nothing to do with her pro-choice opinions here.
In today's digital media landscape, she has every outlet to promote "her voice." The internet has every channel, every platform available for people to share their opinions and reach their audience. There's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, iTunes and Soundcloud for podcasting. Wix has a great drag/drop website builder. Did TheBlaze just remove your access to the Facebook page they operated or did they revoke your Snapchat account too?
TheBlaze didn't lock Lahren in a tower and change the WiFi password. They canceled her show.
Personalities leaving one platform or channel for another, usually in a business move, happens all the time. When Grace Helbig left YouTube network MyDamnChannel to go independent, she didn't get to take her 2.4 million subscribers or 211 million total views with her. Libertarian activist Lauren Southern recently left Canadian outlet Rebel Media to go independent and focus on her own YouTube channel.
Do these situations have different circumstances? In many respects, yes. Southern and Helbig, among many others, made these changes on their own terms.
Faced with adversity, however, I thought Lahren was "tough?" She said what she meant and she meant what she said. She was a true, red-blooded American who picked herself up by her bootstraps when the going got tough and all those other red, white and blue cliches.
Her Twitter header reads:
"Find it within yourself, because if you can find it within yourself and say F* them, nothing can touch you after that."
So, with every opportunity and outlet in front of her, where is Lahren's real response? Not her lawyer-supervised interview on ABC (sidenote: what's with all the ABC interviews? Lahren said numerous times the "mainstream media" doesn't touch most stories that aren't "plastered to Facebook.") or cryptic subtweets via Twitter, no, I want to know where Tomi's real honest response is.
The problem is, that would require Lahren doing some independent thinking for once, without a script (or a teleprompter.)
Every true, red-blooded American and conservative knows that no one, outside a tyrannical government, can take your voice away. You are, however, personally responsible for what you do say. The truth is hard. It's hurtful and it's introspective. Life, Tomi, just handed you some hard truth.
Wahhh, wahhh. Glenn Beck took away her shiny studio, her producer, and her dressing room. She sounds like a spoiled child, upset because she had her favorite toy taken away. Tomi Lahren, you are not a victim, so stop acting like one.
If her audience still wants Lahren, they'll follow her where ever she goes. Maybe a new Facebook page, a YouTube channel, or a cable news network (because, as many of us assume, that's what she want the most).
She said on Nightline she wants to move on. She said she wants Beck and TheBlaze to let her go. What Lahren has to realize is, if she hasn't already, she is responsible for taking the first step.
Tomi, you have the right to defend your opinions freely and openly. For a while, TheBlaze provided you with a platform. Now you're free to go and find a new one- preferably where you speak without a lawyer present.
