Five advertisers pulled advertising from Sean Hannity's Fox News program after he pushed a conspiracy theory involving the murder of a former DNC staffer Seth Rich, BuzzFeed reported. The story has since been retracted from Fox News.
One of the largest advertisers, Cars.com, was the first to dump the talk show on Wednesday, followed by mattress companies Leesa Sleep and Casper, exercise bike maker Peloton, and doorbell company Ring.
In a statement, Cars.com officials said, “The fact that we advertise on a particular program doesn’t mean that we agree or disagree, or support or oppose, the content."
“We don’t have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase. In this case, we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity."
The firestorm surrounding Hannity erupted on Tuesday after he published a report quoting an investigator who said he had information suggesting Rich had leaked data to WikiLeaks.
In the aftermath Rich's death last summer, however, police said his death was the result of a botched robbery.
Following the report, Rich's family released a statement condemning the conspiracies surrounding Rich's death, saying, "We are a family committed to the facts, not fake evidence that surfaces every few months to fill the void and distract."
But the Fox personality remained adamant in his stance, even after the story's retraction and family statement. Hannity went on his radio show and said, "And all you in the liberal media, I am not Fox.com or FoxNews.com -- I retracted nothing."
Ok TO BE CLEAR, I am closer to the TRUTH than ever. Not only am I not stopping, I am working harder. Updates when available. Stay tuned!
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 24, 2017
He also tweeted about it.
The move by a handful of advertisers is reminiscent of what happened after former Fox News Host Bill O'Reilly was flooded with sexual assault allegations. In O'Reilly's case, however, about 22 companies nixed advertising.
