Megyn Kelly blasts O'Reilly, Fox News over harassment allegations

Megyn Kelly forcefully denounced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for “shaming women into shutting the hell up about harassment” allegations on Monday, delivering her most candid remarks on the matter since leaving the network earlier this year.

Kelly, the former anchor at Fox whose program followed O’Reilly’s on cable news’ leading evening news lineup, blasted the ousted host and the network for attacking sexual assault accusers on air and allegedly creating an unsafe environment for victims to come forward with complaints about sexual misconduct in the workplace.


Kelly, who reportedly left Fox News in January to launch a new show on NBC’s morning lineup, in part due to O’Reilly’s behavior, directly refuted his past dismissals of sexual harassment accusers, citing her own experience with the network’s past top anchor.

“O’Reilly’s suggestion that no one ever complained about his behavior is false,” she said while addressing the controversy on her show “Megyn Kelly TODAY.” “I know because I complained.”

Kelly’s comments come on the heels of a New York Times report that Bill O’Reilly settled sexual harassment claims with a Fox News analyst to the tune of $32 million last January, just six months after network chairman Roger Ailes was ousted from Fox amid his own sexual misconduct controversy.

O’Reilly denied the allegations as “lies and smears.” But Kelly, delivering her most stinging rebuke of her former employer since her high-profile departure, said O’Reilly’s refutations highlighted a larger issue of dismissing victims’ claims at the network.

“Perhaps he didn’t realize that his exact attitude in shaming women into shutting the hell up about harassment, on grounds that it will disgrace the company, is in part how Fox News got into the decadelong Ailes mess to begin with," she said.

Kelly said that while the issue is “not unique to Fox News” and that the network had “absolutely made some reforms” to address the issue, the shaming of accusers had to come to an end.

“This must stop. The abuse of women, the shaming or them, the threatening and the retaliation, the silencing them after the fact — it has to stop,” she said.

Kelly added: “Women everywhere are used to being dismissed, ignored or attacked when raising complaints about men in authority positions. They stay silent so often out of fear, fear of ending their careers, fear of lawyers, yes, and often fear of public shaming, including through the media.”

During her emotional monologue, the NBC host cited a November 2016 letter she said she sent to Fox News executive Bill Shine in which she decried O'Reilly's actions, writing, "you've got a hell of a guy hosting that 8 pm hour," according to a copy of the letter posted online by NBC.

O’Reilly responded to the allegations on social media Monday by maintaining that he didn’t “do anything wrong,” while stating that he largely settled the harassment claims to minimize the strain on his family. O’Reilly also denied Kelly’s claim that she had complained about his behavior while both were at Fox during an appearance on Glenn Beck’s radio show.

"She didn't file a complaint that I know of, and she is not mentioning that there was an anonymous hotline at Fox News for years,” O’Reilly said. “Anyone could have called and said, 'Someone is doing something to me and you'd better stop it.'”

The former Fox News host posted pictures online of letters of appreciation written to him from Kelly and Gretchen Carlson, who filed a harassment lawsuit against Ailes after departing the network last summer, both of whom have offered stinging public critiques of Fox and O’Reilly in recent days.

Carlson on Saturday blasted Fox News for re-signing O’Reilly despite reportedly being aware of the multimillion-dollar settlement he made last January.

“It’s horrifying and outrageous that any company, after dismissing somebody for allegations such as that, would not only re-sign a contract but allow that person to come back on the air,” she told CNN.

Kelly on Monday also interviewed Juliet Huddy, one of several women who reportedly has settled sexual harassment allegations against O'Reilly, who spoke about the challenges of speaking out against powerful male media figures.

“I am terrified. I am actually terrified," she told Kelly. "I don’t know why I am about to cry. It is difficult. It is difficult."

According to a January report in the Times, O'Reilly sought to retaliate against Huddy and derail her career after he rejected her advances while working under him at Fox in 2011. Huddy later lodged and secretly settled harassment claims against O'Reilly in the months following Ailes' depature.

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Huddy told Kelly that fears of retaliation often lead victims to stay silent.

"You have to think about your future and some people just want to make it go away and just move on with their lives,” she said.

Representatives for Fox News declined to comment. A representative for 21st Century Fox, Fox News’ parent company, did not immediately return a request for comment.

