Chris Matthews is one of America’s top TV personalities who is popularly known for the television talk show Hardball with Chris Matthews. Hardball is a television talk show that conducts political debates and discussions, talking about various political issues and political scenarios that are going on in the country. The show also invites many popular and well-known political figures and celebrities to its show, who discuss and put forward their opinions about current political scenarios.
Chris Matthews has been the face of this show for over 26 years now, but recently he made an announcement on his show regarding his retirement and exit from Hardball. He said he was retiring and this was his last Hardball show and mentioned that this was not because of his lack of interest in politics. The question which comes here is why he suddenly opted for retirement. Was it just a simple retirement, or was he fired from the show? In this article, we shall be breaking down things for you, the reasons and circumstances that led to Chris Matthews announcing his retirement.
Allegations Made By Journalist Laura Bassett
Before Chris Matthews announced his unexpected retirement, political journalist Laura Bassett made allegations against the TV personality Chris Matthews. She revealed in an interview that Chris Matthews had flirted with her in a very inappropriate manner in 2016 when she was invited as a guest on the show to talk about Donald Trump.
She mentioned that right before the show began, while she was in her makeup room putting up her makeup, Chris came in there and looked at her and commented, “Why haven’t you fallen in love with you yet?” she further said that Mathew kept saying the makeup artist “keep putting makeup on her so that she would look more beautiful and I could fall in love with her.” While giving this interview, she recalled another similar incident with Chris Matthews: he complimented her red dress and said to the makeup artist, “make sure to wipe this makeup off her face after the show. We don’t make her up so a guy at a bar can look at her like this.”
Laura mentioned in the interview that she was shocked, by Chris’s unprofessional behavior, like how a man can behave inappropriately with a woman and the people around him just kept quiet, they didn’t even try to stop him.
But this was not the first time Mathew was accused of behaving inappropriately with other people. A few years back, Chris Matthews was accused by one of the employees of inappropriately commenting and joking about her in front of other people. This became a serious issue, and the company held an investigation where Chris Matthews was found guilty.
The list of Matthews’s allegations goes on and on, some stating he often made sexist remarks and inappropriate comments and was involved in lots of verbal abuse. Some hosts even made it clear that they don’t want to be in the same room with Chris Matthews or want to do makeup if Chris is around them.
Public Comments And Apologies
Well, leaving his allegations aside, Chris also has made a lot of public comments that some way or the other, outraged the audience. Like his comment on Bernie Sanders, where he compared his win in the election to the Nazi’s invasion of France, a comment which was not liked by the public as Bernie Sanders himself is a Jew who has lost his family members during World War 2. Chris Mathews eventually came forward and accepted his mistake, and publically apologized.
Was Chris Matthews Fired Or Retired?
Despite the allegations against him, one cannot deny that Chris had been very dedicated to his work as the leading host on the Hardball show. In 2019 long before his retirement, Chris was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and during the treatment, he just took two weeks of holiday and later returned to the show, this is a clear example of his dedication to his job.
But whatever might have happened during his long journey at Hardball, Chris has now finally retired. Still, the timing of Chris retiring from Hardball right after the allegations against him came out in public is quite something that would make anyone wonder if he really retired or was fired. Because along with announcing his retirement, Chris also apologized in front of the camera for his inappropriate behavior and making inappropriate comments.
Some people who worked in Hardball claimed that the management asked Chris Matthews to step down and retire. In contrast, some others claim that he got fired but looking at the contributions that he has made to the show and its success, the authority asked him to make this look like retirement in front of the public. Well, the truth could be anything, and we might never really know the details of the matter. But whatever the truth, maybe Chris is finally out of the long-running TV talk show.
