The former star presenter of the US Fox News network, Bill O'Reilly, paid in January the sum of 32 million dollars to close a lawsuit for s*xual harassment of an analyst who appeared on his program and a month later his contract was renewed, he revealed The New York Times.
This is the sixth agreement that is known, and the largest, reached by O'Reilly or by the parent company of its chain, 21st Century Fox, to close lawsuits for harassment against the presenter, who this summer was at the center of a scandal.
According to the newspaper, which reported in April on compensation for O'Reilly and cited sources familiar with the matter, 21st Century Fox was aware of the complaints of analyst Lis Wiehl, a Fox News contributor for 15 years.
Wiehl's allegations against O'Reilly include continued harassment, non-consensual s*xual intercourse and the sending of s*xually explicit material. According to the presenter's lawyer, Bill O'Reilly paid 32 million to settle harassment lawsuit and then renewed at Fox O'Reilly and Wiehl had an 18-year "friendship" in which she had sometimes offered him legal advice.
A representative for the presenter, Mark Fabiani, told the Times about the non-consensual s*xual relationship that 21st Century Fox "was well aware" that the analyst had signed an affidavit in which she "was waiving all allegations against him."
After receiving that document, Fox News offered O'Reilly "a record deal," the representative maintains.
In February, he secured a contract extension for him that would bring him $25 million a year for the next four.
In a statement, 21st Century Fox said of the contract that Fox Nexs "certainly would have wanted to renew it" because it was "the biggest star on cable TV" after the signing of host Megyn Kelly by NBC.
In January, NewsCorp tycoon and chairman Rupert Murdoch and his children, top executives at the television network, decided based on economic calculations to support O'Reilly despite his harassment dispute.
The television network was trying at that time to show a renewed work environment after the s*xual harassment scandal carried out the previous summer by the former president of Fox News, Roger Ailes, and by other managers of the chain. According to the television network, in the contract The former presenter was contemplated being fired if new allegations of harassment reached the ears of the managers.
In April, the chain's executives fired him days after compensation came to light to settle lawsuits by five women against O'Reilly, totaling $13 million from 2002.
The information about this agreement, the largest of those known around the harassment scandal on Fox News - the reporter Gretchen Carlson, who denounced Ailes, received 20 million - comes amid another controversy over s*xual harassment in the US, starring film producer Harvey Weinstein.
