Tucker Carlson says he's got nothing to do with ads for a Russian state TV show bearing his name

• Video of an apparent ad for a Russian state TV show bearing Tucker Carlson's name has popped up online.
• The ad appears to indicate that a new Carlson show is coming to Russia.

Ads for a Russian state TV show bearing Tucker Carlson's name have been cropping up online, but the former Fox News host says he has nothing to do with it.

"It's absurd. Come on. Did you actually believe that?" Carlson told Insider over a text message when asked if he had partnered with Russian state TV.

A BBC media monitoring expert, Francis Scarr, posted a video earlier this month of an apparent advertisement for a new show called "Tucker" on Rossiya 24, Russian state TV's rolling news channel. The ad featured clips of Carlson saying "Russia" many times over with the caption, "The high-profile American presenter is moving to another level. Here," according to Scarr's translation.

And on Friday, Scarr shared a new image on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, of an updated logo for the supposed Russian show, with a new caption "at the weekend" added, indicating that it might be coming soon.

"It looks increasingly like Tucker Carlson is going to have his own dubbed show on Russian state TV's rolling news channel," Scarr wrote on X.

Carlson told Insider that he's not involved with the ads at all.

"I'd never ever heard of the TV channel before some reporter texted me about it this morning," he added.

When asked if he would ever consider partnering with Russian state TV, Carlson replied, "Of course not. I'm an American."