Bill O’Reilly is a terrible person, publicly and privately. Just remember that. If you’d like to know how he behaves privately, at home with his family, read some of Gawker’s coverage of how and why O’Reilly lost custody of his children. If you’d like to know how O’Reilly behaves at work, simply glance through the reporting of O’Reilly and Fox News’ payouts to all of the female colleagues he harassed and screamed at. If you’d like to know how he behaves as an on-air personality… well, he’s a racist and a misogynist, no surprise. This week he even laughed at that video of an Asian man being assaulted and dragged off a United Airlines flight:
Habitual sexual harrasser Bill O'Reilly takes time during his show to laugh at the man dragged off the United flightpic.twitter.com/JZH2YrNPuG
— Carlton Banksy (@rtyson82) April 11, 2017
So that’s where we are. Someone like Bill O’Reilly still has a job on cable television. People (white dudes, mostly) still think he’s great. But it seems like Fox News and News Corp executives are seriously considering pulling the plug on all things O’Reilly.
Embattled Fox News host Bill O’Reilly announced tonight that he is taking a vacation. O’Reilly’s decision to go off the air in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal and advertiser boycott arguably has the appearance of a suspension, but O’Reilly worked to dispel that notion. He announced that he’d scheduled his trip “last fall” — well before the New York Times reported he paid $13 million to settle harassment claims. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed O’Reilly will return on April 24.
But according to four network sources, there’s talk inside Fox News that tonight’s show could be his last. Lawyers for the law firm Paul, Weiss, hired last summer by 21st Century Fox to investigate Roger Ailes, are currently doing a “deep dive” investigation into O’Reilly’s behavior. They’re focused now on sexual harassment claims by O’Reilly guest Wendy Walsh after she reported her claims via the company’s anonymous hotline.
Fox News co-president Bill Shine has been working hard to keep O’Reilly, sources said. But O’Reilly’s future is in the hands of the Murdochs. “It’s up to the family,” the senior Fox News staffer said. The Murdochs are presently divided over how to handle it. Two highly placed Fox News sources say 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch would like O’Reilly to be permanently taken off the air, while his father, Rupert, and older brother, Lachlan, are more inclined to keep him. (A spokesperson for the Murdochs declined to comment.)
That dynamic — James pushing for swift action, while Rupert resists — played out last summer in the Ailes scandal. James, of course, got his way with Ailes. With more than three dozen advertisers boycotting O’Reilly, Fox staffers speculate the same may happen to O’Reilly, perhaps as early as during his vacation. “The assumption is that he’ll exit in a non-embarrassing way,” one senior Fox News staffer told me.
Imagine a world where a media conglomerate’s corporate dudes were debating internally about whether or not to fire a woman who was a serial sexual harasser, an on-air female talent who had cost the corporation millions of dollars in out-of-court settlements. Oh, right. That would never happen. Because if a woman behaved as O’Reilly does/did, she would have been fired years ago. Now, all that being said, I don’t really believe James will get his way in this situation. The Roger Ailes thing was slightly different, in that all of the female employees of Fox News banded together to force Rupert Murdoch to fire Ailes. If all of O’Reilly’s victims come together, and all of the current Fox News females come together, then MAYBE there’s a chance O’Reilly could be sh-tcanned.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
agree!!!
Best news I’ve heard all day! Misogynistic jerk can rot away in obscurity!
Good – stay far. Women could safely wear skirts again
Hope he’s flying United.
Me too!
Oh that’s awesome!
HAHAHAHAHA. Him, Hannity, and a good chunk of that odious bunch at Fox news deserve nothing but the worst things to happen to them on the professional front after the things they have said and done over the last twenty years. I don’t want to wish them to have ill health because that is taking it a tad too far for me.
I wonder who they are going to try to replace him with. Maybe Glenbeck will make a comeback because selling gold is not that profitable. Glen might be too liberal now that he admitted that Obama wasn’t that terrible.
Whenever I see and hear Sean Hannity I try my best not to throw up, the man is beyond horrible. He is nauseatingly biased. However Hannity has not harrased any woman though so O’reilly is much worse.
The sad thing is, a person like Bill O’Reilly has the money to retire and not face any consequences or land on his feet at another network. Also he is friends with the current president so he may end up working in government in some capacity. Just look who is working there now?
Maybe he and Bannon will trade jobs.
My exact thoughts
Bill O’Reilly and Trump. Two so-called stars who “can get away with anything” and are two lying peas in a pod. Bill and Fox had a big hand in the ruination of America. I hope Bill never returns but his money hungry immoral bosses will wait and see how the ratings are when he’s on “vacation”. It’s all about the money/ratings with these guys.
I blame Fox for creating the environment and lack of trust in media that made Trump possible. Fox hired lawyers to “look into” the allegations against O’Reilly. I’m hoping they’re actually negotiating his leaving. I’m sure he won’t be fired. He’ll be allowed to retire “gracefully” with all blame squarely on the shoulders of “Leftists” and activists.
I blame them, too. I really hope O’Reilly is brought down by the women he harassed. That will make him so bitter.
I know… that makes me so angry! Why should this sack of sh!t be allowed to save face, instead of going down in the flames of his own making (and ideally taking all of Faux News with him)?
What good are ratings without advertisers though? How does Fox monetize those viewers if the high value advertisers dont want to be associated with that slot. Honestly, this is where we need to focus our energies…on ensuring the advertisers do not return.
I called his show about 10 years ago to tell him how much I like Keith olbermann, to piss him off. He hung up on me. About 3 hours later, my phone rang and some guy Tony told me he worked for O’Reilly and he was going to come after me for “harassing” old Billy. I got his name, the number, and told him calling a talk show host on air, once, is not harassment. I was rattled, though. I was driving with my young daughter in the car and it was just so bizarre, I had to pull
Over for a few minutes.
I emailed Olbermann to tell him and he had a show that night and talked about it and interviewed another guy threatened by Tony. I didn’t want to appear. But O’Reilly has been using thugs to shut people up for many years now. I’m glad these women went public. Tiny can’t secretly threaten them now.
That is crazy
May he enjoy a permanent vacation. At the bottom of a coal mine.
I want them all I want their Scalps and I want them STAT, I want them Assed out of the money they have to pay in settlements, the one from advertisers, the money they paid O’reilly, who needs to get the Sh*tcanning that’s coming his way , never to be seen again on tv with his unbuttered uncooked biscuit dough face, unable to get any platform except in radio with the rest of his cave dwelling ilk, I want Fox ratings to die promptly and incrementally… as will their audience #NOF*ckingCountryEVER
I just don’t understand having no empathy. From watching the UA video I felt sick to my stomach and It brought tears to my eyes and this man chuckles?!
He’s evil. And I hope he goes far, far away.
You would be amazed at how many people feel no empathy. They care about themselves, their families, and their immediate circle of friends… and everyone else can hang in the wind. They conflate lack of empathy with having the chops to get richrichrich. After this election, I am really wondering if utter sociopathy has become ordinary.
I absolutely agree, Miss J. It is shocking that so many people display this behaviour—Trump and O’Reilly are sub-human. I can’t believe anyone has given O’Reilly a job lo these many years. May he go on “vacation” and never be heard from again.
It is revolting that that miserable network preferred to spend millions of dollars shutting women up just to keep their golden boy happy.
I just remembered one of his scandals—the one where he confused a loofah with a falafel when saying disgusting things to a woman on the phone. Now he’ll have time to take a nice loooong shower with his falafel. What an evil s.o.b.
I second that. They played the video on the radio yesterday morning and just hearing what went down, the screaming….I instantly became choked up and had to turn it off. My son was in the car, and even though he’s only 6 months old I found myself apologizing to him that there were such horrible people in the world.
Yes, if a woman had behaved half as badly as O’Reilly, she would have been fired ages ago. But she might still have gotten the job in the first place. But people of colour…it is doubtful that they would have even gotten an interview with the same background whispers that have dogged O’Reilly for years.
In any event, BYE FELICIA. Don’t keep in touch.
Bon-voyage as*hole!!
Many days I am ashamed to be old and white. This menace has stayed in power for so long in part because he tells his audience of racist, sexist, homophobes that the progressive culture and the forces of justice are wrong and they are right. They eat it up. I am sadly unsure if he can actually be brought down in this Age of Trump.
If he leaves Fox he will probably get a radio job like Rush.
Oh he’s just the worst kind of human being. I so hope it is true he is leaving. Next on the list has to be Hannity. Just like the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz, Fox News is melting and it is a glorious moment in time. trump and his trumpeters will be very very sad.
Why is that the men who are the ones who preached, “values and religion” are the biggest hypocrites? Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. Don’t have any sympathy towards this loser.
Bill can always start another new career with United Airlines, they’re hiring now.
This news made me want to burst into song.
OK, everyone join in “nah nah nah . . . nah nah nah . . . hey hey hey . . . GOODBYE!”
It’s way past time Fox did something about this bitter, hateful, poor excuse of a human being. Way past time.
I just wish Rupert Murdoch had never been born. He is evil incarnate, his mother Elisabeth was really moral and charitable, so you never know what kind of horrendous things offspring might do. At the end of the day, without the Murdoch’s guys like Bill would be nobodies.
Never forget…
https://youtu.be/O_HyZ5aW76c
bye felicia
Not sure why I was, but I was surprised that Lachlan wants to keep him.