Glenn Beck countersues Tomi Lahren in employment dispute

Glenn Beck and The Blaze have fired back against Blaze personality Tomi Lahren, countersuing the firebrand media personality Monday in response to her own lawsuit against the outlet.

Beck’s 35-page counterclaim, filed in a Dallas court, alleges that The Blaze benched Lahren last month after repeated bad behavior, rather than just for making pro-abortion rights remarks, LawNewz.com reported. 

Lahren regularly clashed with other The Blaze personalities, the lawsuit allegedly, even at one point boasting that she would own the company.

“Lahren turned down a number of advertisers on The Blaze for unexplained reasons, limiting any chance for The Blaze to recoup its investment into her and her show,” Beck’s countersuit reads.

{mosads}The complaint also states that Lahren was repeatedly “inappropriate and unprofessional” during her interactions with crew members during her Blaze TV show, “Tomi.” And it says Lahren broke company rules by revealing, in an interview with The Ringer, that her wardrobe budget ran to $40,000.

Beck’s countersuit adds that Lahren’s “word choice on air” repeatedly threatened to offend viewers.

Beck hired Lahren in 2015. Her conservative monologues regularly went viral on social media, building her online following to 4.3 million Facebook followers and more than 680,000 Twitter followers.

But now, even the fate of the Facebook page that bears Lahren’s name is in dispute, with Lahren seeking to control it while Beck counters that it belongs to the company.

Lahren sued Beck and The Blaze for wrongful termination earlier this month following an appearance on ABC’s “The View” that saw her support abortion rights and, to the minds of some critics, call small government anti-abortion activists hypocritical.

“[Lahren was] understandably disappointed, saddened and in shock for being suspended for freely expressing her opinions, which certainly reconcile with what is the law of the land in the United States i.e., a women’s constitutional right to choose and in no way inconsistent with any of [Lahren’s] obligations under the Employment Contract,” Lahren’s legal complaint reads.

The Blaze said in a statement Monday that Lahren remains an employee of the outlet, adding it will not renew her contract once it expires in September.