Radio personality Anthony Cumia was fired by Sirius XM Satellite Radio on Thursday following a series of racially-charged tweets he posted on Wednesday alleging he was assaulted by a black woman in Times Square.
Cumia, a resident of Roslyn Heights, was part of the shock jock duo “Opie and Anthony” alongside Gregg “Opie” Hughes that broadcast through the subscription-based Sirius XM network since 2004.
“Those remarks and postings are abhorrent to SiriusXM, and his behavior is wholly inconsistent with what SiriusXM represents,” Sirius representatives said in a statement.
Cumia, Sirius officials said, was notified late Thursday of his dismissal.
“Sirius decided to cave and fire me,” Cumia wrote in a since-deleted Twitter post on Friday. “Welcome to bizarre world. Fired for s— that wasn’t even on the air & wasn’t illegal. So, who’s next?”
Hughes tweeted on Monday that he and comedian Jim Norton will broadcast on Sirius on July 14 to determine the future of the “Opie and Anthony” program.
Cumia, who made $3 million per year as co-host of “Opie and Anthony,” said in an exclusive telephone interview with The Wire that his “Live From the Compound” podcast he aired from his Horseshoe Lane home in Roslyn Heights will become his primary outlet moving forward.
“I’m getting the ‘Live from the Compound’ show up and running, handling some logistics stuff and getting stuff together,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll be putting out a couple promos. I’m definitely ready. Hoping to air the first week of August.”
Cumia’s firing marked the third controversy that led to his or the program’s termination since “Opie and Anthony” first went on the air in 1995.
The duo were fired from a Boston-area radio station in 1998 after they conducted an April Fool’s prank that claimed then Boston Mayor Thomas Menino was killed in a car accident.
Then in 2002, the program was canceled by the now-defunct Infinity Broadcasting Corporation after a contest promoted through the show led to a couple calling in saying they were having sex in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
On Wednesday, Cumia went on a lengthy, expletive-riddled Twitter rant alleging he was taking photographs in Times Square when a black woman began punching him after appearing in some of his pictures, which he also tweeted.
In the series of now-deleted tweets, of which screenshots were published on the online news blog Gawker, Cumia referred to his alleged attacker in derogatory sexual terms and claimed, “she’s lucky I was a white legal gun owner or she’d be dead.”
“The c— animal kept walking into my arm I had up as a block saying ‘DONT (sic) TOUCH ME!’” he tweeted. “Then would hit me. I hope a home boy beats her to death.”
“There’s a deep seeded problem with violence in the black community,” he said in another post. “Try to address it and you’ll be exiled to racistville. But it’s real.”
Cumia has since deleted all tweets dating back to Jan. 20, but on Saturday tweeted two photos that appeared to be taken during a Fourth of July party.
In the aftermath of the incident, a petition to reinstate Cumia on the grounds his First Amendment rights were violated in his termination circulated on the site Change.org. The petition pledges its signers would boycott Sirius XM until Cumia is reinstated.
On Monday, the petition had amassed more than 10,000 signatures.
“Americans should be allowed to lead their personal lives how they see fit, without having to worry about repercussions from their employer,” wrote the petition’s organizer, a Change.org user named Frrrrrrunkis Chipperson. “Mr. Cumia is afforded the same freedom of speech as every other American, even if you find his views disgusting or in bad taste.”
