And Then There Was Hannity

Bill O’Reilly. Roger Ailes. Megyn Kelly. One by one, the biggest personalities at Fox News have left the building.

- Felix Gillette

During commercial breaks on his Fox News program, Sean Hannity likes to wing around a football with anyone in the vicinity of his desk. At roughly 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders and a substantial noggin reminiscent of late-empire Roman statuary, Hannity, 55, is a sporty guy. Like many middle-aged men, though, he’s prone to pack on the pounds. During a round of golf in 2012, a friend took a picture. “I looked four months pregnant,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “I had man boobs.” He started dieting and working out with a martial arts instructor. “My trainer will attack me, try and put me down, and I’ll grapple and throw him,” Hannity said. “Take any scenario: Come up to me from behind, put me in a chokehold, put a gun to my head, threaten me with a knife, and I know how to get out of it.”

With big personalities, eight-figure salaries, and zero-sum competition for airtime, cable news is particularly well-suited to braggadocio—and in Hannity’s case, it can go a bit past bragging. In the Fox News studio one evening in October, after taping a debate with liberal commentator Juan Williams, Hannity pulled out a gun. He pointed the weapon at Williams, flicking on its laser sight and dancing its red dot across Williams’s body. (CNN’s Dylan Byers broke the news of the incident.) Hannity, Williams, and Fox News Network LLC put out statements downplaying the incident. Hannity referred to Williams as “my good friend” and noted that the gun, for which he had a conceal-carry permit, wasn’t loaded. Williams said that “it was clear Sean put my safety and security above all else.” Fox News said an internal investigation had concluded that “no one was put in any danger.”