After Bill O’Reilly called a New York Times report about his sexual harassment settlement “lies and smears,” arguing that no woman in 20 years had issued a complaint about him through human resources at Fox News, Megyn Kelly called him out by name on Monday, saying that it may be true no one went specifically through HR to file, but his claims that no one ever spoke up about him was false.
“I know, because I complained,” Kelly said.
Kelly revealed that in her experience, the culture at the network did not support sexual harassment victims or encourage them to step forward, and that O’Reilly’s public comments about sexual harassment and abuse allegations waged against Fox News boss Roger Ailes compelled her to write an email to the co-presidents of the network in November 2016.
“Perhaps (O’Reilly) didn’t realize that his exact attitude of 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 decade-long Ailes mess to begin with,” Kelly wrote in part.
“I know, because I complained.”
“Perhaps it’s his own history of harassment of women which has, as you both know, resulted in payouts to more than one woman, including recently, that blinded him to the folly of saying anything other than ‘I am just so sorry for the women of this company who never should have had to go through that.’”
Kelly went on to slam Fox News veteran Irena Briganti, who Kelly called “vindictive” for the way she handles sexual harassment allegations.
“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,” Kelly said.
“At Fox News, the media relations chief Irena Briganti is known for her vindictiveness. To this day, she pushes negative articles on certain Ailes accusers, like the one you’re looking at right now. It gives me no pleasure to report such news about my former employer, which has absolutely made some reforms since all of this went down. But this must stop. The abuse of women, the shaming of them, the threatening, the retaliation. The silencing of them after-the-fact. It has to stop.”
Take a look at the clip in its entirety, including O’Reilly’s public comments, above.
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