Bill O'Reilly Paid Millions To Settle Sexual Harassment Allegations, Fails To Address It On Show

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a piece that’s been in the works for several, several months about Bill O’Reilly settling millions of dollars worth of sexual harassment allegations from women. It’s a long, detailed piece with all sorts of investigative reporting, but the main takeaway is this:

An investigation by The New York Times has found a total of five women who have received payouts from either Mr. O’Reilly or the company in exchange for agreeing to not pursue litigation or speak about their accusations against him. The agreements totaled about $13 million.

Not a good look. The story came out Saturday. The first taping of O’Reilly’s show was yesterday, and the media world wondered how or if he would address the elephant in the room.

He did not. Now advertisers are pulling out (lol) from the show.

I’ve gone on the record many times and said that I really like Bill O’Reilly. As an admitted conservative, he’s still tough on both sides and has no reservations in grilling ANYONE he thinks has fucked up. I like that. I used to crank O’Reilly’s “Radio Factor” during my lunch breaks working valet at the hospital. Loved that shit. The spin stops here boys and girls.

But this is a horrendous look, surely not improved by ignoring the story. I get that pretty frequently O’Reilly likes to stay above it all — as the king of cable news he’s earned that to a certain degree — but this is different. Sexual harassment is different than simply getting into a little cable news tussle with MSNBC (ie: sexual harassment is wrong, very very wrong). O’Reilly’s being accused of some shitty things — things he’s absolutely ROASTED other people for — and then ignoring it on his show, where he’s famous for attacking things head on.

Of course, this all comes amid a pretty shady time for Fox.

This is a sensitive time for Fox News as it continues to deal with the fallout of the Ailes scandal. The network is facing an investigation by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is looking into how the company structured settlements. Fox News has said that neither it nor 21st Century Fox has received a subpoena but that they have “been in communication with the U.S. attorney’s office for months.”

Yeah, not a good look at all. He shouldn’t have ignored it; I would’ve liked to have seen him do it live.