Fox News’ new religious channel may already be getting off on the wrong foot.
The day after the network announced it would be launching its new vertical “Fox Faith” with a flagship podcast series called The Life of Jesus podcast, Rolling Stone reported that the actors behind the biblical characters, including Frozen actress Kristen Bell, had no idea their work would be used on the conservative platform.
According to the report, Bell only found out that the audio work she’d done as Mary Magdalene for 2010’s The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible was being reworked for Fox’s Jesus podcast a day before the network announced the project. She wasn’t told directly, however. Instead, Bell’s team was alerted to the podcast because she had been invited to appear on Fox & Friends to promote it.
A Fox News spokesperson told The Daily Beast, “Gulfstream Studios produced the ‘Life of Jesus Podcast’ from The Truth and Life Dramatized Audio Bible, which was licensed by FOX News Audio, with full cooperation and participation by all the actors involved.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to representatives for Bell for further comment.
The actress has been critical of Donald Trump in years past for his response to the Black Lives Matter movement and his immigration policies—at one point telling the president via Twitter to “Zip it Don and get ur head outta ur a--.”
Fox’s licensing deal with Gulfstream Studios, the outlet behind the audio bible, allows the network to repurpose the audio into its 52-part series. Bell’s rep said she was not asked for permission before that decision was made. Bell is only one of several celebrities the network is touting to promote the new podcast.
Others include John Rhys-Davies—whose rep told Rolling Stone he was also unaware his voice work was being used for Fox’s project until this week—Julia Ormond, Sean Astin, Neal McDonough, Malcolm McDowell, and Brian Cox.
Cox voiced God for the original Dramatized Audio Bible. However, the Succession star’s comments about both The Bible and Fox News may make him a tough sell for that audience, as he called The Bible “the worst book ever” last April and classified Fox News as “the devil.”
“I don’t even go there,” he also said of the network in 2021. The Daily Beast has also reached out to a rep for Cox for comment.
Fox, meanwhile, is trying to keep the switcheroo on the down low. Rolling Stone reports that a note from one of the podcast’s producers had asked the talent involved to “not mention that this audio New Testament Bible was produced years ago, we’d like it to feel like something that was produced more recently.” Whether or not the cast will adhere to the request remains to be seen.
Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt will host the Life of Jesus podcast series, which will premiere on Nov. 30. Earhardt previously hosted Ainsley’s Bible Study for Fox Nation.
The series and new vertical are part of a push to bring more subscribers to the network’s Fox Digital platform. Fox News Media executive Jason Klarman told Variety that the vertical will wet an “insatiable appetite” for more faith-based programming.
