Fox News Paid A Cool Fortune To Settle Sexual Harassment Claims Against Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly is the highest paid on-air host at Fox News, making $20 million a year for his nightly show on which he lies, bullies, distorts the facts, and kisses the butt of any Republican he happens to encounter. But it turns out that over the years O’Reilly has cost the network a great deal more than what they pay him in salary.

The New York Times reports that over the years O’Reilly has been in the employment of Fox News, the network has paid five different women a total of $13 million over the years to get those women to agree not to pursue lawsuits or even speak about their claims against O’Reilly. Each of the women had appeared on O’Reilly’s television show, including former Fox News host Andrea Tantaros, who also sued former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes for sexually harassing her.

The allegations against O’Reilly included verbal abuse, vulgar statements, unwanted romantic advances, and even phone calls where it sounded like he was masturbating.

Reached for comment, 21st Century Fox denied the allegations on O’Reilly’s behalf and issued a statement which read:

“21st Century Fox takes matters of workplace behavior very seriously. Notwithstanding the fact that no current or former Fox News employee ever took advantage of the 21st Century Fox hotline to raise a concern about Bill O’Reilly, even anonymously, we have looked into these matters over the last few months and discussed them with Mr. O’Reilly. While he denies the merits of these claims, Mr. O’Reilly has resolved those he regarded as his personal responsibility. Mr. O’Reilly is fully committed to supporting our efforts to improve the environment for all our employees at Fox News.”

O’Reilly’s ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy said in court during the couple’s divorce that the Fox anchor had physically abused her, choking her and dragging her down a flight of stairs. McPhilmy was later awarded custody of the couple’s two children.

As has been clear since the dismissal of Roger Ailes, Fox News is rife with exceptionally bad behavior by some of the men who work at the network and have risen to high positions over the years. Apparently Fox News is indeed an accurate representation of what many GOP lawmakers think is acceptable behavior when it comes to women in the workplace. And yet they try to claim there is no war on women.

This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org

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