It's been an odd week for online gaffes at Fox News. A few days after Fox News host Greg Gutfeld sang "I gotta pee" while he was unknowingly on live television, Sean Hannity made a similar, although arguably less embarrassing, gaffe. On March 18, 2021, a video started circulating on social media that supposedly showed Hannity smoking a Juul, an electronic cigarette, before realizing that the show had returned from a commercial break:
This is a genuine video from a live Fox broadcast.
The on-air flub quickly became fodder for Hannity and Laura Ingraham. When Hannity was joined by Ingraham, the Fox News host took a sip of water and joked, “Oh wait, am I on camera right now?”
The Hill reported:
"Oh wait, am I on camera right now?" Ingraham said to a laughing Hannity,
"It happens to the best of us, Hannity" she continued. "I mean , those little moments are cute. Those are in the forever reel of the real Hannity. We wanna know you!."
"Enjoy it! Everybody at my expense," Hannity said, before signing off.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that a video supposedly showing Hannity smoking an e-cigarette has gone viral.
In September 2017, Harry Shearer, one of the voice actors from "The Simpsons," posted a 40-second clip that supposedly showed Hannity smoking an e-cigarette. This video, however, did not show content that had aired live to Fox News viewers. While details are a little scarce, it appears that this video shows Hannity after tossing to another segment. Viewers at home saw a different set of images, but Shearer, who also works for Fox, got his hands on this unaired clip via "sources and methods" and posted it to Twitter:
In a since-deleted tweet, Hannity said that "it's NOT real," apparently referring to the fact that this was an e-cigarette, not a real cigarette, and then added that the e-cigarette company NJoy was an advertiser on his radio show.