Princewill Pius
After 21 years of hosting his own show, The O’Reilly Factor, on Fox News, Bill O’Reilly was fired in 2017. According to a report released by The New York Times on April 1st of that year, the shamed news anchor was ousted when it was revealed that either he or parent company 21st Century Fox gave payouts to five different women in exchange for agreeing not to “pursue litigation or speak about” the sexual harassment or “inappropriate behavior” to which they were subjected. The agreements “totaled about $13 million.”
According to Variety, the women accused O’Reilly of “verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating.” As a result, advertisers began pulling their support from The O’Reilly Factor, including BMW, Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz, and Hyundai. By April 11th, O’Reilly gave his last broadcast.
On April 24th, the disgraced anchor returned to work on his podcast, No Spin News. “Hey, I missed you guys,” O’Reilly said (via NBC News). “I am sad that I’m not on television anymore. I was very surprised how it all turned out … But I can tell you that I’m very confident the truth will come out.” At the time of this writing, no sort of “truth” has helped O’Reilly regain his career.
Written by: Nicki
