Fox News host Laura Ingraham's brother Curtis has had enough of her "hypocrisy," and is breaking his silence over their estranged relationship.
In a telephone interview with The Daily Beast published on Tuesday, Curtis, a Calfornia-based teacher who happens to be gay, said of his right-wing pundit sister: "I think she's a monster." He described his sister's personality as "destructive" and that she always comes across as "very angry."
"She’s very smart, she’s well spoken, but her emotional heart is just kind of dead," he said. "And you see it in her face when you see her on TV. She’s ready to destroy. She does not listen to understand—she listens to respond. And her response is always an attack."
Curtis has "very limited contact at this point" with his sister, he told The Daily Beast, due in large part to her stance on LGBT issues.
While studying at Dartmouth in the 1980's, Laura secretly recorded a gay campus group meeting, which she called "cheerleaders for latent campus sodomites," and subsequently outed the students to their parents, along with sending them recordings of the meetings.
Laura later wrote a regretful op-ed in 1997 after Curtis came out as gay, which Curtis said moved him toward forgiveness. But Laura's gradual descent into religious extremism created a bigger schism in their relationship, as her views on gay marriage became an issue on which the siblings would have to "agree to disagree."
Her second 180 pivot on LGBT issues "goes against my ethics," Curtis recalled. "You’re destroying me. It’s hideous, it’s hideous behavior."
Curtis said "that’s what I’m trying to unveil here, the hypocrisy. ‘Family’s first, I know about gay rights, my brother is gay.’ It’s all a sham."
Ingraham responded to her brother's posts, which she describes as "false and hurtful," expressing regret over the deterioration of their relationship.
"My siblings and I are shocked and saddened to learn of these false and hurtful online postings," Ingraham said in a statement. "Although we’ve been estranged from him for many years, we love our brother and miss him very much."
Curtis has routinely used Twitter to challenge his sister's extreme right-wing views.
In June, he supported an advertising boycott of Laura's show after she attacked Parkland survivor David Hogg, whom Curtis said he supports.
"My sister's recent comments likening detention centers to summer camps is beyond disturbing. Where is her humanity?" Curtis tweeted in June.
He then tagged a number of sponsors of Ingraham's show, calling their support "disturbing."
"My sister's repeated mean spirited, flip and insensitive remarks makes me, her brother, question her very humanity," Curtis said.
"The reason I’m sharing these details is because of what is happening in our country," Curtis said of his Twitter posts. "I feel like a bit of a whistle-blower in trying to unveil hypocrisy."
Curtis said that although at one time he and his sister were "very close," the divisive political climate in the United States has made any sort of meaningful relationship impossible.
"Our country has been thrown into this divisive state," Curtis said. "So now I feel like I have got to speak out, I’ve got to speak out for my own sanity."
"The divisiveness in this country has cut through not just friendships, but it’s cut through families," he said. "I was doing that dance with my sister for a while, we were very tight, her anger was funny to me back then."
Now? Not so much. Laura's pro-Trump and racially-charged show, Curtis said, he prompted him to fight back on Twitter.
A perfect example of this is Laura's stance on immigration. Last month, she said immigration "changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us don’t like," drawing nearly universal ire and causing sponsors to flee her show.
Curtis blamed the influence of their "racist, abusive father" for his sister's views.
When Laura was at Darmouth, Curtis said she would speak "jive" to mock black students.
"It is not easy for me," Curtis said of his strained relationship with his sister. "My heart has been bruised, it has been kind of irreparably bruised. But I’m trying to illuminate and shed a light on hypocrisy."
Note: This piece has been updated to include a statement by Laura Ingraham in response to her brother's posts.
