[ad_1]
Tucker Carlson appears to have been fooled by a prank over the heavily edited Mother’s Day photo of Catherine, Princess of Wales, and her children.
YouTube pranksters Josh Pieters and Archie Manners claimed to have tricked the former Fox News host into believing he had landed an interview with a Kensington Palace digital content producer who had been fired for poorly editing the family photo. in a video posted on X On Thursday, the duo shows Manners posing as the disgruntled employee, falsifying palace employment documents and designing what is apparently the “original” of the now-infamous photo.
According to the video, the fake employment contract that Manners and Pieters drafted included a clause stipulating that if an employee fails their probationary period, the employer can amputate a limb of their choice, a detail that Carlson’s team apparently failed to notice. .
Carlson then interviewed Manners via teleconference from a studio in London. The duo said Deadline that they posted their video before Carlson because they didn’t want to spread misinformation. By deadline:
Manners said he “stroked” Carlson’s ego with the claim that he was giving the ex-Fox man the exclusive because “the mainstream media in the UK wouldn’t touch it.”
The video has been viewed more than 1.2 million times on X and Carlson has not posted the interview on his streaming service, Tucker Carlson Network. (His network did not immediately respond to a request for comment from MSNBC.)
Over the years, Carlson has promoted debunked conspiracy theories and raised ridiculous claims as part of an attempt to create a warrior image that fighting against “elite ruling class.” For example, who could forget his disconcerting interview with a man who claimed to have used drugs and had sexual relations with former President Barack Obama?
It’s unclear whether Carlson would have published the interview if the pranksters hadn’t made it public, but it’s entirely plausible that he would have had no qualms about airing it whether or not he believed it to be true.