He was born in San Francisco in May 1969 as the excesses of the Sixties peaked and the conservative backlash to the counterculture and the Civil Rights movement started to take shape. Tucker Carlson's West Coast roots burrow as deep as a giant redwood.
"You owe it to yourself and the country to do something useful with your talents. "Your level of interest in the boring details of my life is creepy as hell, and also pathetic," he wrote. Tucker declined to participate in an interview with Insider. But less well known are his early years and how they shaped him: his bohemian artist mother, who abandoned her young family and cut Tucker and his brother out of her will the Rhode Island prep school where he met his future spouse and his formation into a contrarian debater who could both amuse and infuriate his audience with his attention-getting tactics. Tucker's four decades in Washington, and his transition from conservative magazine writer to right-wing television pundit, have been well documented. But, I mean, it seems pretty unlikely that I would be that guy." he said on the "Ruthless" podcast in June, dismissing this possibility. "I mean, I guess if, like, I was the last person on earth, I could do it. Tucker's name has even been floated as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024. In the words of Roger Stone, a Republican political operative, frequent guest, and longtime friend of Tucker's: "Tucker Carlson is the single most influential conservative journalist in America… It is his courage and his willingness to talk about issues that no one else is willing to cover that has led to this development." His furrowed visage and spoiling-for-a-fight demeanor are all too familiar to those who have known him for decades. (Note on style: Tucker Carlson and the members of his family are referred to here by their first names to avoid confusion.)įour decades later, glimmers of that prep school provocateur appear on Tucker's Prime Time show on Fox, which garners an average of between 3 to 4 million viewers a night. Wayner himself never saw Tucker's hand go up, and the two kept in touch over the years. "Whether it was a legitimate shooting may have been a point of debate but the fact was that Tucker was an underclassmen and the culture was to defer to the seniors." George's alumnus who would go on to be a military historian. "Tucker was just sort of fearless," said Ian Toll, a St. Then a sophomore, Tucker had a reputation as a gleeful contrarian – an indefatigable debater and verbal jouster who, according to some, could also be a bit of a jerk. Harvard soon beckoned.Įleanor Bumpurs was shot and killed by the New York Police Department on October 29, 1984 He earned straight As and was so admired that in 1984 his peers elected him senior prefect, the prep equivalent of student body president, making him the first Black class leader in the school's 125-year history. He was one of the school's few Black students and had grown up in a residential tower not far from where Bumpurs had lived. George's prep school, some 175 miles away in Rhode Island, the incident deeply haunted Richard Wayner. A third officer fired two shots from his 12-gauge shotgun, striking Bumpurs in her hand and chest.Įleanor Bumpurs' death dominated the city's news for two months and led the NYPD to revise its guidelines for responding to emotionally disturbed individuals.Īt St.
Bumpurs, who had a history of mental illness, grabbed a butcher knife as two officers pushed her against a wall with their plastic shields and a metal pole. Five officers responded by storming into her apartment. When officials from the city housing authority tried to evict her, she refused, and they called the police. Bumpurs, who lived in a public housing complex in the Bronx, had fallen four months behind on her rent. 29, 1984, New York police killed an elderly Black woman named Eleanor Bumpurs in her own home.