Tomi Lahren, the cheerfully bigoted 24-year-old commentator who rode on Trump’s coattails to viral glory, recently got in big trouble with her employer Glenn Beck when she told The View that her preference for limited government required her to be pro-choice, claiming “stay out of my guns, and you can stay out of my body as well.”
This not being a remotely accepted conservative talking point, Lahren was suspended from Beck’s network The Blaze, then reportedly “banned permanently.” She tweeted a bunch of stuff like this:
But soon recovered:
Now, the Dallas Morning News reports that Lahren is suing Beck and The Blaze for wrongful termination. The suit claims that a Blaze producer accompanied Lahren to The View and applauded her comments, and that Beck and the company already knew about her pro-choice position and hadn’t previously taken issue with it. However, the suit alleges, a few days later, “Plaintiff was contacted by TBI’s Human Resources Director/Supervisor and advised that she was suspended indefinitely and that she need not return to TBI’s office(s), all because of her pro-choice opinions expressed on The View.”
Lahren, according to the suit, was “understandably disappointed, saddened and in shock for being suspended for freely expressing her opinions,” which her suit claims does not qualify as the termination “for cause” written into her contract but is rather a “political litmus test” that doesn’t reconcile with the employment contract. Lahren alleges that The Blaze ordered her to “go dark” on social media and has still refused to relinquish control over her Facebook page, where she has 4.2 million followers.
The suit, reviewed by Jezebel, also alleges that the company backlash against Lahren’s comments was whipped up with “a specific intent to inflate Beck’s profile, from what has become a mediocre following,” and that “Beck is known for berating, belittling, and acting in a condescending and heavy-handed way.” The lawsuit claims that TBI employees “stretched yellow caution tape spelling an ‘X’” on her dressing room door following her suspension.
The suit asks the judge to grant a temporary restraining order to prevent the company from interfering in her “right to free speech in any medium,” as well as interfering with her ability to publish “in any format, on any social media,” and asks for “attorneys’ fees and costs as well as all other relief whether in law or in equity upon which she may show herself justly entitled.”
A representative for The Blaze did not immediately return a request for comment.