Fox News stops running MyPillow commercials in a payment dispute with election denier Mike Lindell

abcnews.go.com:

Fox News has stopped running MyPillow commercials in a payment dispute with chief executive and election denier Mike Lindell

MINNEAPOLIS — MyPillow chief executive and prominent election denier Mike Lindell said Friday that Fox News has stopped running his company's commercials, disputing the network's assertion that it is simply because he hasn't paid his bills.

Lindell went public by tweeting that Fox, which had been one of MyPillow's biggest advertising outlets, had canceled him. He said in his tweet that he didn't know why but that he suspected that the network was trying to silence him. Fox denied that.

Losing Fox was just the latest in a series of financial and legal setbacks for Minnesota-based MyPillow and Lindell, who continues to propagate former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, in part by rigged voting machine systems. Several big-box retailers, including Walmart, have discontinued his products, and lawyers who were defending him against defamation lawsuits by voting machine companies quit.

“As soon as their account is paid, we would be happy to accept their advertising,” Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Lindell acknowledged that MyPillow owes money to Fox. He put the figure at $7.8 million, but he insisted that the sum is within his credit line with the network. He said MyPillow has long spent an average of $1 million a week to run its ads on Fox. And he said the network had long allowed him 12 weeks of credit until it recently cut that to eight weeks.

Lindell said he believes Fox wants to silence him “because I want to secure our election platforms" — an assertion that Fox disputes. And he said he suspects the network is