{"id":179659,"date":"2017-12-04T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T01:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/04\/schadenfreude-bill-oreilly-edition\/"},"modified":"2017-12-04T20:56:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-05T01:56:00","slug":"schadenfreude-bill-oreilly-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/12\/04\/schadenfreude-bill-oreilly-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Schadenfreude, Bill O’Reilly Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment victims is now suing him.<\/div>\n

There was a settlement with him some years back, but O’Reilly could not keep his mouth site, and the agreement included mutual non-disparagement clauses, so she gets another bite at the apple<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Looking for a biography of fired Fox News host Bill O\u2019Reilly? Try this one, with the title: \u201cThe Man Who Would Not Shut Up<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Prophetic. The fallen cable news star was sued Monday in a New York federal court for, essentially, failing to shut up. Some background: As the New York Times reported in a career-killing April 1<\/a> article, O\u2019Reilly, along with his employer, had settled several cases with female colleagues alleging mistreatment and sexual harassment over a 20-year career at Fox News. One of them was Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, a producer who, in 2002, ended up on the wrong end of an O\u2019Reilly tantrum. Sexual harassment was not alleged, though Bernstein reached a settlement and left Fox News.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The complaint filed Monday comes from Witlieb Bernstein<\/a>, who alleges breach of contract \u2014 she and O\u2019Reilly signed non-disparage and confidentiality agreements as part of the 2002 settlement \u2014 and defamation. Written by Neil Mullin and Nancy Erika Smith of Smith Mullin, P.C.<\/a>, it spits at O\u2019Reilly\u2019s attempts to save face. The statements published in the media, notes the complaint, try to paint O\u2019Reilly as a \u201ctarget\u201d of extortionate claims. \u201cThis is false,\u201d reads the complaint. \u201cIn fact, he is a serial abuser and Ms. Bernstein\u2019s complaints against him were far from extortionate.\u201d Another element of the complaint addresses O\u2019Reilly\u2019s oft-repeated insistence that he was never the subject of a complaint to human resources departments over his career. \u201cI never mistreated anyone,\u201d he said in one interview<\/a>. He also alleged that the charges against him were \u201cpolitically and financially motivated.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, Mr. O\u2019Reilly is the liar,\u201d says the complaint, which also lists Fox News as a defendant. \u201cHe mistreated Ms. Bernstein. She was forced out of her job at Fox News and paid a settlement because of his mistreatment.\u201d Contrary to O\u2019Reilly\u2019s claims, Witlieb Bernstein did indeed go to human resources and \u201cother company executives\u201d to raise her complaints about O\u2019Reilly, argues the suit. That she apparently got nowhere isn\u2019t a surprise: The HR department at the time was a captive hive of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who was ousted in summer 2016 over sexual-harassment claims and died in May. In response to the Ailes and O\u2019Reilly scandals, Fox News has strengthened its HR functions; the HR chief now reports to 21st Century Fox, and not to Fox News.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am extremely amused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment victims is now suing him. There was a settlement with him some years back, but O’Reilly could not keep his mouth site, and the agreement included mutual non-disparagement clauses, so she gets another bite at the apple: Looking for a biography of fired Fox News host Bill O\u2019Reilly? Try …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[368,415,364,490,407,486],"class_list":["post-179659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-corruption","tag-entertainment","tag-evil","tag-hack-journalism","tag-justice","tag-schadenfreude"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}