Tucker Carlson, the former CNN and Fox News political chat host, has said he was “physically mauled” by a demon a year and a half ago, in an assault that he says left him bleeding and with scars from “claw marks”.

Carlson made the claim while speaking in an upcoming documentary, Christianities? In a preview clip on YouTube, Carlson is asked by John Heers of the non-profit First Things Foundation if he believed that “the presence of evil is kickstarting people to wonder about the good”.

“That’s what happened to me. I had a direct experience with it,” said Carlson.
Asked if he was referring to journalism, Carlson responded: “No, in my bed at night. I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs and mauled, physically mauled.”

Carlson, who said he still bears the scars, said his assailant was a “demon”. He added: “Or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”

He said at the time of the attack, he was asleep in bed. I was “totally confused, I woke up, and I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I was going to suffocate”, he said.

“I walked around outside and then I walked in and my wife and dogs had not woken up. And they’re very light sleepers. And then I had these terrible pains on my rib cage and on my shoulder, and I was just in my boxer shorts and I went and flipped on the light in the bathroom, and I had four claw marks on either side underneath my arms and on my left shoulder. And they’re bleeding.”

He added that he explained the encounter to an assistant, an evangelical Christian, who told him: “That happens, people are attacked in their bed by demons.”