Bill O'Reilly Is Out at Fox News Following Series of Sexual Harassment Allegations
After at least six women accused him of sexual harassment, scores of advertisers fled his program, and protesters demanded that he be fired, Bill O’Reilly’s days at Fox News have reportedly come to an end.
New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported Wednesday that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan, have decided that it is no longer sustainable to keep O’Reilly—who has ruled cable news for as long as anyone can remember—in his place.
From Sherman:
The Murdochs’ decision to dump O’Reilly shocked many Fox News staffers I’ve spoken to in recent days. Late last week, the feeling inside the company was that Rupert Murdoch would prevail over his son James, who lobbied to jettison the embattled host. It’s still unclear exactly how the tide turned. According to one source, Lachlan Murdoch’s wife helped convince her husband that O’Reilly needed to go, which moved Lachlan into James’s corner. The source added that senior executives at other divisions within the Murdoch empire have complained that if O’Reilly’s allegations had happened to anyone else at their companies, that person would be gone already.
O’Reilly’s downfall is a stunning end to one of the most long-running, successful careers in television. He has had the highest-rated cable news program on any network for decades. His career has also withstood multiple past sexual harassment and domestic abuse allegations. But a recent New York Times story detailing the millions of dollars in secret settlements Fox News and O’Reilly himself have paid out to several different accusers over the years appears to have dealt him a fatal blow. The story, and the public testimony from some of the accusers, led at least 60 advertisers to pull their commercials from The O’Reilly Factor.