Fox Commenter Fired for Saying UCSB Shooter was Secretly Gay

Winnie McCroy READ TIME: 2 MIN.

A Fox News commenter, reality show host and psychotherapist has already began seeing fallout from what Gay Star News calls her "baseless speculation" that the killer of six college students at University of California Santa Barbara was fighting "homosexual impulses."

Dr. Robi Ludwig lost her position as the lifestyle real estate correspondent for top real estate firm Coldwell Banker Real Estate after she speculated that Elliot Rodger was driven to kill because he was secretly gay.

"Dr. Robi's comments on the tragedy in Santa Barbara do not represent the opinions of Coldwell Banker. Therefore at this time we feel it best to part ways with her as our lifestyle real estate correspondent," the company wrote on their Facebook page.

The shooter had posted a video and 141-page written manifesto in which he admitted to being a virgin who was angry for being consistently rejected by women, saying that he would "take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one the true alpha male."

Somehow Dr. Ludwig interpreted Rodger's statements of, "If I can't have you, girls, I will destroy you" as a plea for help from a confused young homosexual angry at sorority girls for stealing all the good men.

Mediaite reports the good doctor floated her theories to Fox's Jeanine Pirro, saying that while she initially thought he was angry at women, she later "started to have a different idea: Is this somebody who is trying to fight against his homosexual impulses?"

"Was he angry with women because they were taking away men from him?" she asked. "But this is a kid who couldn't connect, and felt enraged, and wanted to obliterate anyone that made him feel like a nothing." Seconds later, she added that even though she had never had a chance to diagnose him in person, she thought he might have had "early signs of schizophrenia."

When Pirro pointed out that Rodger's victims included men as well as women, Ludwig asked, "Was he angry at the men for not choosing him? This is a kid who was just angry in general and probably felt rejected, he couldn't connect, he couldn't feel loved, he couldn't feel successful. Maybe he didn't feel like a real man."

Although Dr. Ludwig later said that she was "misunderstood," it was likely the implication that gays are not "real men" that was her undoing. Or the tasteless homophobia in the light of a gruesome, murderous rampage that killed six victims, wounded a dozen, and ended with Rodger dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.


by Winnie McCroy , EDGE Editor

Winnie McCroy is the Women on the EDGE Editor, HIV/Health Editor, and Assistant Entertainment Editor for EDGE Media Network, handling all women's news, HIV health stories and theater reviews throughout the U.S. She has contributed to other publications, including The Village Voice, Gay City News, Chelsea Now and The Advocate, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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