Advertisers Leaving Hannity Over Seth Rich Story

The Five host Kimberly Guilfoyle may be in the running to replace Sean Spicer—but she'll be replacing Sean Hannity first. Guilfoyle announced Wednesday night that she will be standing in for Hannity on Thursday and Friday as the Fox host takes two nights off amid the Seth Rich controversy, Mediaite reports. Hannity had continued to push a conspiracy theory claiming the Democratic National Committee staffer was murdered by the Clinton organization for helping WikiLeaks, even after Fox retracted a story that linked Rich to WikiLeaks.

On Wednesday, multiple advertisers announced that they were pulling their ads from Hannity's show, BuzzFeed reports. They included Crowne Plaza Hotels, mattress companies Casper and Leesa Sleep, and Cars.com, which said it had been watching the situation closely. CNN reports that Hannity later said he plans to stop covering the Rich story, though he said it was out of respect for the man's family, not because of advertisers or internal pressure at Fox. "Nobody tells me what to say on my show. They never have and frankly they never will," Hannity said. "I'm not that type of person you can say, 'Go on air and say this.'" (More Sean Hannity stories.)