Bill O'Reilly will no longer host his show on FoxNews.
Today we have learned the answer to one of the pressing questions of our time: how many years is a white man allowed to sexually harass women in his workplace if he also hosts a lucrative cable news show? The answer, it seems, is 21. Twenty-one years is how long Bill O’Reilly has been hosting a show on FoxNews and also harassing women at FoxNews.
But according to reports today, O’Reilly has reached his lifetime limit on harassing women at FoxNews and will lose his cable show in the process.
Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that over the years, 21st Century Fox, the parent company of FoxNews, has paid out about $13 million dollars to employees or on-air guests of O’Reilly’s program. The settlements were all paid in return for the women not seeking further legal remedies for O’Reilly’s actions. The women alleged lewd and inappropriate behavior “including verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances and phone calls in which it sounded as if Mr. O’Reilly was masturbating.”
I’ll let everyone pause to google images of frolicking kittens to cleanse our minds of the image of Bill O’Reilly whacking it on the phone with women who didn't want to be part of that activity.
I’m of the opinion that there are probably more women who were harassed by Mr. O’Reilly but haven’t said anything. After all, we know FoxNews is not exactly a bastion of safe workplace policy for women. Former FoxNews head Roger Ailes was sent packing this summer after his own set of abuse allegations.
Even though O’Reilly’s ratings actually rose after the sexual harassment allegations were published (ew), the top brass at the network apparently have decided that he has to go. Not only has there been a public outcry about how gross and disgusting it is for a major news network to knowingly be complicit in allowing a criminally filthy old perv to keep harassing staff and guests while his employer quietly pays them to go away, but advertisers have been fleeing his broadcast slot in droves.
No one wants to hang around with the sicko who calls up women and masturbates at them. For good reason.
21st Century Fox has formally announced that O’Reilly’s show will be coming to an end, but there’s no word on what that’s going to look like. I won’t be tuning in to watch it no matter what.
In closing, I think we can all agree that Beyonce said it best when she said “Boy, bye.” Bye, Bill. Good riddance.
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Image Credit: Flickr/Justin Hoch
