Report: Bill O’Reilly Settled A $32 Million Sexual Harassment Claim Prior To Renewing His Contract With Fox News

Everyone’s losing their minds over this. Mediate is calling it an “absolute bombshell report.”

So, is it?

According to a report from the New York Times (I know, I know), Bill O’Reilly settled a $32 million sexual harassment claim just a month before renewing his contract with Fox News. In other words, Fox News knew about this to some extent and signed him anyway.

Although the deal has not been previously made public, the network’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, acknowledges that it was aware of the woman’s complaints about Mr. O’Reilly. They included allegations of repeated harassment, a nonconsensual sexual relationship and the sending of gay pornography and other sexually explicit material to her, according to the people briefed on the matter.

 

It was at least the sixth agreement — and by far the largest — made by either Mr. O’Reilly or the company to settle harassment allegations against him. Despite that record, 21st Century Fox began contract negotiations with Mr. O’Reilly, and in February granted him a four-year extension that paid $25 million a year.

 

Interviews with people familiar with the settlement, and documents obtained by The New York Times, show how the company tried and ultimately failed to contain the second wave of a sexual harassment crisis that initially burst into public view the previous summer and cost the Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, and eventually Mr. O’Reilly, their jobs.

Yikes, man. It ultimately sounds like it was just too much to contain. Fox News couldn’t keep it under wraps.

Everything about this looks bad. We’ve been BLASTING Hollywood for perpetuating this hush-hush culture. It’d be hypocritical not to condemn Fox News for basically doing the same thing. Principles are principles. What were they THINKING? Fox News can’t take the moral high ground here if it was perpetuating the same culture.

Yeah. I said it.

In addition, federal prosecutors who had been investigating the network’s handling of sexual harassment complaints against Mr. Ailes had asked for material related to allegations involving Mr. O’Reilly, according to an internal Fox email obtained by The Times.

 

“Their legal theory has been that we hid the fact that we had a problem with Roger,” Gerson Zweifach, Fox’s general counsel, wrote in the email, referring to the prosecutors and Mr. Ailes, “and now it will be applied to O’Reilly, and they will insist on full knowledge of all complaints about O’Reilly’s behavior in the workplace, regardless of who settled them.”

 

He warned the Murdochs that they should expect details from the January settlement to become public. Six days later, Mr. O’Reilly was fired.

 

In a statement, 21st Century Fox said it was not privy to the amount of the settlement and regarded Mr. O’Reilly’s January settlement, which was reached with a 15-year Fox News analyst named Lis Wiehl, as a personal issue between the two of them.

I was never a fan of Bill O’Reilly. He always irritated me. I know some people say he’s innocent. Go ahead. Believe what you want. No one’s stopping you. Like most other cases, we don’t know what happened for sure. All I know is, he spent $32 million settling a single complaint. Holy cow. That’s a lot of money.

Bill O’Reilly spent $32,000,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint with a network analyst and then Fox *renewed his contract.* 😮 pic.twitter.com/WesbHvV2sv

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) October 21, 2017

A $32 million sexual harassment settlement implies a very dark story. https://t.co/X95o97mPeH

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) October 21, 2017

Bill O’Reilly settled for $32mil, then Fox renewed his contract.

And never forget that Fox only let him go because he lost his sponsors.

— Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) October 21, 2017

$32 Million settlement paid by @BillOReilly for alleged sexual harassment and a “nonconsensual sexual relationship” https://t.co/KZI5bYcLXl

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 21, 2017

This NYT story comes at a time when Bill O’Reilly is actively seeking a new TV platform. https://t.co/EnpABudKxm

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 21, 2017

$32 mil is a staggering figure. After the settlement Fox began talks w/O’Reilly to extend his contract W/@emilysteel https://t.co/Hjgd2N92AA

— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) October 21, 2017

$32 million to settle one Bill O’Reilly harassment case–& then they extended his contract! Murdochs gonna Murdoch. https://t.co/CeESyJLFE5

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) October 21, 2017

2. FNC was not aware of the amount but they knew he settled a big claim, but business was more important than the safety of their staff

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

3. After he was fired in April, O’Reilly acted as if he was a victim, all these women were coming after him…

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

4. Lis Wiehl, like most of O’Reilly’s victims, had audio, text messages, emails etc as proof. You don’t pay someone $32 million without that

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

5. Even though they fired him and knew of a recent settlement, FNC let him come on Hannity and promote his book. https://t.co/UvbuvYzV3x

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

6. Imagine if you are a woman who was harassed by O’Reilly and he gets to walk through the halls and return with glory.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

7. O’Reilly says that he’s just a target cause he’s rich/famous. I know lots of rich and famous TV hosts and they don’t settle 6 lawsuits

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

8. These are the women we know of….O’Reilly has paid out at least $45 million in sexual harassment settlements. He’s a predator. pic.twitter.com/nO08ZGL53L

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

9. Tucker Carlson can keep quiet now. https://t.co/6BFRWAsxoH

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

10. By the way, like Weinstein stuff, the Lis Wiehl situation was an open secret at FNC. I knew about it but couldn’t confirm it.

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 21, 2017

21st Century Fox has released a statement:

Here is 21st Century Fox’s statement about today’s revelation about Bill O’Reilly’s $32 million settlement: pic.twitter.com/Tf5VG5DfH7

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 21, 2017

What do you think?