O’Reilly ousted at Fox
NEW YORK — Bill O’Reilly has lost his job at Fox News Channel following reports that five women had been paid millions of dollars to keep quiet about harassment allegations.
21st Century Fox issued a statement Wednesday that “after a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel.”
He had been scheduled to return from a vacation next Monday.
O’Reilly was photographed in Rome shaking Pope Francis’ hand on Wednesday.
It marks a stunning end to a nearperfect marriage between a pugnacious personality and network. For two decades, O’Reilly ruled the “no spin zone” with cable news’ most popular show, and his ratings had never been higher.
In a memo to Fox staff on Wednesday, the Murdochs, who own Fox, said the decision followed an extensive review done in collaboration with an outside counsel.
Fox said that Tucker Carlson’s show would move to 8 p.m. to replace O’Reilly and that the panel talk show, The Five, would take Carlson’s time slot at 9 p.m.
The fast-moving story took shape with an April 2 report in The New York Times that five women had been paid a total of $13 million to keep quiet about unpleasant encounters with O’Reilly, who has denied any wrongdoing. Dozens of advertisers fled, even though O’Reilly's viewership increased. O’Reilly has denied wrongdoing.
Even though at least one of the harassment cases against O’Reilly dated back more than a decade and was widely reported then, the accumulation of cases outlined in the Times damaged him much more extensively. It wasn’t clear when those stories would end, with a group of women demonstrating in front of Fox’s headquarters Tuesday and another woman, a former clerical worker at Fox, calling a harassment hotline and accusing the host of boorish behaviour.
“I’m not going away,” said Lisa Bloom, attorney for the latest accuser and another woman who alleges her career stalled because she spurned O’Reilly's advances. “My phone is ringing off the hook.”
O’Reilly’s attorney, Marc Kasowitz, charged that his client was being subjected to a “brutal campaign of character assassination” and there was a smear campaign by far-left organizations.
O’Reilly’s viewership increased the week after the story appeared. Potential successors like Dana Perino, Eric Bolling and Greg Gutfeld substituted for O’Reilly since he left for vacation.