Fox News Renews Bill O'Reilly's Contract Despite Disgusting Sexual Harassment Scandals
Despite all the evidence, Bill O’Reilly isn’t losing his job – in fact, he’s actually getting his contract renewed.
The Fox News host was recently the subject of a scathing investigation by the New York Times; the paper discovered that O’Reilly has been at the center of much more controversy than previously known. But that didn’t stop 21st Century Fox from reportedly signing their biggest star to an even longer deal.
The claims in the NYT piece are many, but here are the highlights: over the years, millions of dollars have been paid out by the company to handle O’Reilly’s scandals. In all, there’ve been 5 settlements that totaled $13 million; 3 were paid out by Fox, the other 2 by O’Reilly.
The largest by far of those was a $9 million, paid out to producer Andrea Mackris. O’Reilly would allegedly call her repeatedly and request phone sex. Some of the ridiculous quote—including his suggestion to “just use your vibrator to blow off steam” —can be found in the video below.
But the Mackris case, as ridiculous as it was, is old news, originally reported back in 2004. It’s all these new scandals that have finally reared their head that have everyone talking, because it sounds like Bill’s still up to his old tricks:
“[The complaints have been] about a wide range of behavior, including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating,” according to the NYT.
Of course Fox and O’Reilly put out weak statements on the matter, both stressing that no one’s ever filed a complaint with HR against Bill, which would support the idea of the host being extorted – if it weren’t for all the other evidence.
But like Trump, none of this scandal is hurting his career: O’Reilly has reportedly brought in $446 million in ad revenue with his show over the past three years.
So controversy or no, it’s not surprising that he’s getting his contract extended.
Sad and disgusting, yes; surprising, no.
