Bill O’Reilly Threatens to Sue PBS Host, Storms Out When Pressed on His Sexual Harassment Settlements

September 20, 2024 @ 4:54 PM

Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stormed out of an interview with Margaret Hoover on “Firing Line” after she brought up the sexual allegations that led to him being fired in 2017.

She began by saying, “I don’t expect that you can comment on this.” He replied, “Well, I knew it was coming,” adding, “I’d be a fool to dredge that up.”

Hoover mentioned the 2017 article she wrote for the New York Times that called his firing a “welcome step.”

He dismissively told her, “Yeah, I know what you wrote.”

After she read aloud excerpts from the piece, including that he had “blamed others,” instead of practicing the core conservative value of personal responsibility, she asked, “How do you respond?”

He replied, “I don’t. You don’t know anything about it, so you can write whatever you want.”

Hoover, who was a regular guest on “The O’Reilly Factor” from 2007 to 2011, countered with, “I do know about the culture I experienced [at Fox News].”

After summarizing her article as “a diatribe,” he said, “I knew you were going to do this and I’m not afraid… next time, don’t write some inflammatory essay trying to be a ‘virtue signaler’ unless you know what the hell you’re talking about.”

After Hoover mentioned Gretchen Carlson and O’Reilly said, “That’s enough, I’m not going to get into this… that’s it,” ending the interview early.

He then warned her “you’re in for a problem” if she used any of the footage.

“It’s disappointing that Bill O’Reilly, knowing he would be asked, has not reflected on how the settlements involving him and several women have affected their ability to earn a living in media again, even as he continues to, in his words, ‘flourish’ in independent media,” Hoover later told Mediaite.

She added that, in her seven years of hosting “Firing Line,” O’Reilly was the first guest to leave early. “Clearly, he was uncomfortable fielding questions related to the sexual harassment allegations that are a significant part of his legacy. I also gave him the opportunity to comment on legislation intended to give victims of sexual harassment additional legal power and the evolution of workplace culture, and he declined.”

You can watch the nearly four-minute clip in the embedded tweet above. The full interview airs Friday night on PBS at 8:30 p.m.

O’Reilly was fired by Fox News in 2017, after a New York Times exposé revealed the network had spent tens of millions of dollars to settle at least six separate sexual harassment accusations against him. These accusations went back to at least 2004.

Mediaite first reported this story.