Bill O’Reilly Ends Interview After Being Asked About Sexual Harassment Settlement

In a segment set to air Friday, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly cut short an interview with PBS host Margaret Hoover after he was asked about a sexual harassment settlement that cost him his job.

O’Reilly sat for the interview with “Firing Line” last week to discuss his new book, “Confronting the Presidents.” But O’Reilly couldn’t handle being confronted himself after Hoover asked him about the $32 million sexual harassment settlement he paid in 2017.

The settlement was paid to former Fox News legal analyst Lis Wiehl, who accused O’Reilly of “repeated harassment, a nonconsensual sexual relationship and the sending of gay pornography and other sexually explicit material to her,” according to The New York Times.

Hoover, who used to work for Fox News, read parts of a 2017 New York Times opinion piece that she wrote criticizing O’Reilly.

“Mr. O’Reilly blamed others, embracing the victimization he so ridiculed of the American left,” Hoover wrote at the time. “He claimed his departure was no fault of his own, but the cost of doing business as a high profile media personality. This is an outlandish claim. William F. Buckley, Tom Brokaw and Anderson Cooper are high-profile media personalities, and yet, they have never been dogged with repeated sexual harassment entanglements.”

O’Reilly told Hoover he’d “be a fool to dredge that up,” and went on the defensive.

“You don’t know anything about it, so you can write whatever you want,” O’Reilly said.

“I do know about the culture that I experienced there,” Hoover replied. “That’s what I could write about, and that’s what I did have the ability to write about.”

“You were on my program for four years, you had no problem, and that’s what you know about me,” O’Reilly said. “You don’t know anything else about me, so you write whatever you want.”

Hoover pressed O’Reilly on questions regarding the settlement.

“I knew you were gonna do this, all right? And I’m not afraid,” O’Reilly said, before ending the interview.

In an interview with Mediaite, Hoover said it was “disappointing” that O’Reilly wouldn’t answer her questions.

“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 told the publication.

Before leaving the set, O’Reilly warned that his “attorney is going to be watching,” according to Mediaite.

The full episode of “Firing Line” airs Friday night.