Here are some of the things Bill O’Reilly has done, allegedly, to the women he has worked with throughout his two decades at the Fox News Channel:
- approaching an African American woman whose desk was near his, referring to her as “hot chocolate,” and grunting like a “wild boar”
- offering multiple unwanted sexual advances and lewd comments to a woman producer on his show, phoning her “when it sounded as if he was masturbating” and describing “various sexual fantasies”
- suggesting that she “buy a vibrator,” “engage in phone sex or a threesome with him,” and listen to “the details of his alleged sexual encounters with a cabana masseuse, airline stewardesses, and Thai sex-show workers”
- threatening to make any woman who dared to complain about his behavior “pay so dearly that she’ll wish she’d never been born”
Here are some of the things that happened to O’Reilly in reaction to these allegations, some of which have long been public, over that time: ... not very much. The accusations may have been reported in the media, and progressives may have had some laughs at O’Reilly’s expense because of them (Google “Bill O’Reilly loofah”), but there O’Reilly remained, the star of the Fox News Channel, pugnacious and indestructible. And he stayed on his perch in large part because from there O’Reilly was able to make massive amounts of money—for himself, and for the company that had elevated him. From 2014 through 2016, according to one report, The O’Reilly Factor generated more than $446 million in advertising revenues.