It's been barely two days since his brutal ouster from Fox News - but Tucker Carlson looks like a man without a care in the world.
The TV firebrand shrugged off the media storm and insisted he was more interested in enjoying a romantic date with his wife Susan as he broke his silence in an exclusive chat with DailyMail.com.
'Retirement is going great so far,' chuckled Carlson, 53, as he emerged from his $5.5 million beach home in Boca Grande, Florida on Tuesday night.
'I haven’t eaten dinner with my wife on a weeknight in seven years.'
Pressed on his future, the flame-throwing former host of Tucker Carlson Tonight flashed a broad smile and joked: 'Appetizers plus entree.'
Dad-of-four Carlson zoomed off in a golf cart without elaborating on reports that he was 'blindsided' by Monday's shock announcement that he was 'parting ways' with Fox - despite being the network's biggest prime-time star.
But DailyMail.com understands that he spent Tuesday huddling with right-hand man Justin Wells - who lost his executive producer gig - as the cable news veterans plotted their next move.
Former Fox host Glenn Beck and Jeremy Boreing, the founder of conservative media company, The Daily Wire, have both said they'd love to offer a job to Carlson, who courted controversy by arguing against US involvement in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rejected the notion that January 6 was an insurrection.
Sources say, however, that Carlson is unlikely to make any significant moves while powerhouse Hollywood attorney Bryan Freedman negotiates his exit package with Fox Corp brass.
Freedman is also representing axed CNN anchors Don Lemon - who was fired the same day as Carlson - and Chris Cuomo, who wants a $125 million payout for wrongful termination.
The shakeup at Fox came six days after it announced a $787 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which accused the network's hosts of 'giving life' to a 'manufactured storyline' about voter fraud in the 2020 election.
The suit exposed a trove of awkward internal emails and texts, including messages in which Carlson revealed that he 'passionately’ hated Donald Trump and complained about senior execs, allegedly labelling one a c***.
Carlson is also at the center of a lawsuit lodged by former booking producer Abby Grossberg who claims she was subjected to bullying, sexism and anti-Semitism while working on his nightly 8pm show, a ratings behemoth that regularly drew more than three million viewers.
Grossberg told MSNBC Tuesday how she celebrated Carlson and Wells losing their jobs because they made her life a 'living hell'. Liberal opponents took to social media to gloat over the host's demise.
Carlson looked unfazed by their glee as he left his secluded Gulf Coast home and headed out for date night, smiling broadly, and dressed in a smart, blue button-down shirt and khaki pants.
Sat beside him on the golf cart was Susan Andrews Carlson, 53, his college sweetheart and wife of 32 years, who wore a pretty, patterned dress and draped her hand affectionately across her husband's lap.
The loved-up pair - who have four children, Buckley, Dorothy, Lillie, and Hopie - pulled over briefly to talk with a DailyMail.com reporter before Tucker sped away into the humid Florida evening, howling with laughter.
The family has homes in Woodstock, Maine and in Boca Grande, an exclusive enclave on Florida's Gasparilla Island, spending summers in the Northeast before heading south each winter.
Carlson bought the first of his two adjoining Florida properties in January 2020 for $2.9 million then snapped up a second last year for $5.5 million, forming a sprawling, seven-bed complex set in lush tropical vegetation and a stone's throw from the ocean.
Wells, who worked for Fox News for 15 years, was spotted arriving for talks earlier in the day while two security agents stood guard outside.
Susan went for a stroll after lunch, wearing a large floppy hat as she walked her dogs on the beach with a neighbor's son.
She poured cold water on Twitter rumors that her husband was already poised to give a tell-all interview, telling DailyMail.com: ‘No, these are private discussions, it’s nothing like that.’
Sources say the Carlson matriarch is privately furious at the way Fox swung the axe on her husband's 14-year tenure with the network, first as a contributor then as the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight from 2016 until last Friday.
He was paid around $20 million annually and had his contract renewed in 2021 - yet reportedly only learnt of his departure ten minutes before Fox released a blunt, three-paragraph statement.
'Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways,' the announcement read. 'We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.'
Carlson was not told why he was being forced out by Fox CEO Suzanne Scott, who reportedly said the decision was made 'from above'.
Various insiders have claimed it was News Corp supremo Rupert Murdoch who made the decision before his son Lachlan put the ‘hit’ into motion.
Carlson divided opinion - and drew fierce criticism, especially from the left - with his on-air polemics on everything from the 2020 presidential election to the Black Lives Matter movement.
But he hasn't always been known as a right-wing firebrand. His career, which began in the mid-1990s, has included work for a wide range of publications, including a long stint at CNN, and he's also the author of several books.
As a print journalist, he wrote for publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Esquire. But, at the time, there were limits to who he was willing to work for.
In 1999, Carlson said he feared being written off as a ‘wing nut' if he joined The American Spectator, a conservative magazine. His TV break came in 2000 when he joined CNN and co-hosted The Spin Room.
Carlson was recognizable by his trademark bow tie. He started wearing the neckwear in 1984 while a student at prep school - and only dropped it in the 2000s after a stranger who took issue with the attire 'screamed obscenities' at him while walking through Penn Station in New York.
In 2004, while hosting Crossfire on CNN, Carlson was given a dressing down by comedian and commentator Jon Stewart during a segment that's regularly dug out by Carlson's critics.
Stewart accused the show and its hosts of 'hurting America' and mocked Carlson for his bow tie. 'You're doing theater, when you should be doing debate, which would be great,' he said. 'What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery.'
In 2004, while hosting Crossfire on CNN, Carlson was given a dressing down by comedian and commentator Jon Stewart during a segment that's regularly dug out by Carlson's critics.
Crossfire was axed several months later before Carlson spent three years at MSNBC, appearing on Dancing with the Stars in 2006, before becoming a household name on Fox.
‘We would love to have you here. You won't miss a beat. And together, the two of us will tear it up. Just tear it up,’ Beck said of his friend, speaking on his radio network TheBlaze.
‘I think that will kill Fox. I really do … you lose Tucker Carlson. I think that really kills them. Hey, have I reminded you to join TheBlaze?'
