When Fox News hired Laura Ingraham last September to join its prime-time lineup, executives knew she was a potential management headache. As a guest host in the past, Ingraham was well known for being volatile with producers. Her on-set blowups were so legendary that staffers in the newsroom would sometimes turn on the monitors and watch the unfolding drama on mute for fun. Efforts by management to rein her in were largely unsuccessful. “No one tells Laura what to do,” one Fox executive told me.

Last week, Ingraham’s volatility became not just a newsroom issue, but something of a crisis for the network. Ingraham’s tweet ridiculing Parkland survivor-turned-gun-control-advocate David Hogg about his college admissions ignited an uproar. Hogg responded by calling on advertisers to boycott Ingraham’s show. By Friday, about a dozen companies had yanked commercials despite Ingraham issuing an apology, a step she took on her own.

Inside Fox, senior executives were exasperated, sources said. “You don’t attack a kid,” one told me. “It was an unforced error.” Not surprisingly, the network’s advertising department was in an uproar. “People are pulling their hair out,” one insider told me. But there was debate about how to respond. It wasn’t the first time Ingraham’s rhetoric had caused problems. In February, Ingraham told LeBron James that he should “shut up and dribble” after James was quoted by ESPN criticizing Donald Trump. Ingraham’s comments about James made executives apoplectic, sources said. They hoped that the Hogg controversy, while annoying, wasn’t at the same level. If they stayed quiet it might blow over. Ingraham is off the air this week on a vacation the network insists was pre-planned. But her absence has failed to stanch the advertiser exodus. As of yesterday, 16 brands had publicly bailed; an insider said the number is higher. And in the media, speculation ramped up that Ingraham might not return to Fox.

Rupert Murdoch continues to recover at his Bel Air estate from a back injury suffered on his son Lachlan’s yacht in January, but he had strong views on how Fox should respond to the controversy. Sources said the 87-year-old mogul wanted Fox to more forcefully defend Ingraham against the boycott. “They needed to show the haters wouldn’t get a scalp,” one Fox staffer said. According to an insider, on Saturday, Murdoch emailed Fox News co-president Jack Abernethy and instructed him to support Ingraham. On Monday night, the network released a statement with Abernethy’s name attached. “We cannot and will not allow voices to be censored by agenda-driven intimidation efforts . . . We look forward to having Laura Ingraham back hosting her program next Monday when she returns from spring vacation with her children,” it read. (A person close to Murdoch said he was not involved in drafting the statement.)