The former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly blasted New York Times reporters who helped expose the sexual-harassment allegations against him.

O'Reilly settled a lawsuit for $32 million, according to The Times' latest report.



The former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly ranted to several New York Times reporters who revealed in reporting over the past few months that O'Reilly made numerous settlements with women who accused him of sexual harassment.

Speaking with the Times reporters Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt, O'Reilly insisted that the numerous claims against him were inaccurate, saying they were part of a political plot to bring him down, though he did not discuss any details.

"We have physical proof that this is bulls---," he said. "It's on you if you want to destroy my children further."

"Why don't you be human beings for once?" he continued. "This is horrible, what I went through. Horrible what I went through. This is crap, and you know it."

O'Reilly insisted that The Times' "figures are wrong" and that the paper was "making assumptions," and he claimed that the ousted Fox News host Eric Bolling's son died because of sexual-harassment allegations against Bolling, though the police still have not released information about Bolling's son's death.

After staying quiet for several months, O'Reilly has reemerged to promote his new book and insist on his innocence.

Audio of The Times' interview with O'Reilly was released Monday, a few days after The Times reported that O'Reilly settled a new sexual-harassment claim for $32 million in January, a month before Fox News' parent company, 21st Century Fox, renewed O'Reilly's contract. As framed by Schmidt on Monday's episode of The Times' podcast "The Daily," many of O'Reilly's most pointed comments came at the end of the on-the-record interview when the reporters prepared to leave the room and turned off one of their recorders.

The former host appeared last month in mostly softball interviews with Fox News, Breitbart News, and The Hollywood Reporter, though on NBC's "Today" show he clashed with host Matt Lauer, who pushed back on O'Reilly's claim that the revelations of sexual-harassment settlements by him were a "hit job."

Listen to the audio at The New York Times.