Tucker Carlson Bought $5.5M Florida Home Before Leaving Fox

Carlson and his wife Susan Andrews reportedly paid $5.5 million for a second Boca Grande home.

The news world is still reverberating from Fox News  (FOX) - Get Free Report's ouster of Tucker Carlson. 

The right wing news and television network parted ways with its most-watched prime-time host known for supporting conservative political candidates and peddling conspiracy theories around the 2020 election just a few days after settling an election defamation lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million.

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While there was much speculation around how Carlson's departure was likely a condition of the settlement, Fox News did not reveal any specifics around Carlson's departure and the move came as a massive shock to both conservatives and liberals given that he told viewers of the Friday, April 21 program that he'd "be back on Monday."

Carlson Has Two Homes In This Exclusive Florida Community

In the 24 hours following the announcement of the ouster, Carlson has been inundated by job offers from different far-right actors — from former Fox News colleague Glenn Beck to Russian state media.

But Carlson's main residence is on Florida's Gasparilla Island. A barrier island on the Gulf Coast, the 2,800-person enclave is home to the exclusive Boca Grande community that George H. W. Bush, Matt Damon and Katharine Hepburn all also called home at different points.

According to newly dug-up real estate records, Carlson and his wife Susan Andrews paid $5.5 million for a second home in Boca Grande in the summer of 2022. 

The pair already owned a four-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot home hidden away from prying eyes by a private lane and ample foliage that they bought for $2.9 million in 2020. 

This property comes with a guesthouse and a garden courtyard and served as the Carlsons' primary residence after they traded it in for their stone-built, 7,400-square foot home in Washington, D.C. in 2018. 

The move was prompted by a group of protesters that gathered outside the home to protest Carlson's far-right theories.

Both the earlier and current sales were mired in a sheath of secrecy as they weren't listed on the open market and purchased through a limited liability company.

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Details reported by the Dirt.com celebrity real estate site reveal that the newest purchase was built in 1969 and is a single-story property with four bedrooms on a 0.28-acre plot of land.

As of spring 2023, Carlson had an estimated net worth of more than $420 million and owned a number of luxury cars and yachts alongside the real estate portfolio.

During his time at Fox, Carlson was earning an estimated $8 million a year and bringing in a nightly audience of over 3.4 million viewers. 

After news of his ouster broke, the Fox Corporation shares sank by more than 6% and the company lost over $600 million in value. The company is going to fill Carlson's place by rotating in existing hosts until a permanent replacement is found but analysts do not expect the departure to sink the company's worth in any significant way over the long-term given Fox's reach across multiple platform and far reach among conservative viewers.

"Intermediate to longer term, perhaps [there is] some financial impact depending on who takes Carlson's place and their success, or lack thereof," Joseph Bonner, a senior securities analyst at the Argus Research firm, told CBS News Watch.