Months after Bill O’Reilly was fired after revelations of settlement payments (from O’Reilly and Fox) to women accusing him of sexual harassment, the former Fox News host returned to the network with a Hannity appearance to promote his new book. However, as happy as Sean Hannity and O’Reilly looked to be together, not everyone is pleased that Fox News welcomed him back.
Former Fox and Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson told Vanity Fair what she thought of O’Reilly coming back as a guest and was unsparing in her remarks:
“It’s disappointing that somebody who was fired from Fox would be given a venue to come back on as a guest, especially based on the reasons that surrounded it.”
Carlson also addressed the idea of O’Reilly’s “comeback” as a reflection of the societal attitude regarding sexual harassment:
“In some ways you could say we’ve made a lot of progress. Women are feeling emboldened and courageous enough to say enough already. That’s the positive side. I don’t think we’re done hearing from other women coming forward. The negative side is that we thought we had come a lot farther along in 2017. One of the things that fools society into thinking we have come this far is that we often don’t hear about these cases because they’re settled in forced arbitration. They’re secret.”
Carlson, who sued former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, also noted that she had no plans to promote a new book of her own on the network. Another woman who once prominently appeared on Fox News, Greta Van Susteren, shared a similar sentiment on Twitter.
It will be interesting to see if they will have me on when my book comes out Nov 14; I didn’t get fired/or sue; just left per contract :) https://t.co/1LtqfaI1oL
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) September 27, 2017
(Via Vanity Fair)