“Sad” Bill O’Reilly Says Fans Will Be “Shaken” When “Truth Comes Out” About Fox News Exit
“I am sad that I am not on television any more,” said Bill O’Reilly today, less than a week after being fired by Fox News Channel over multi-million dollar sexual harassment payments and new allegations. “I was very surprised on how it all turned out,” he added on his podcast Monday, quickly opening a new chapter in his media career.
“I can’t say a lot because there is much stuff going on right now but I can tell you that I’m very confident that the truth will come out and when it does I don’t know if you are going to be surprised but I think you are going to be shaken as I am,” the subdued ex-O’Reilly Factor host also said on his highly anticipated personal podcast literally minutes before newly minted replacement Tucker Carlson prepares to take over the fallen cable news ratings king’s 8 PM ET time slot tonight for the first time with a scheduled interview with Caitlyn Jenner. “There’s a lot of stuff involved here.”
No wonder the word of the day at billoreilly.com today is “sciolistic,” which is defined as to speak on matters of which one has rudimentary insight, at best – that’s clearly what O’Reilly thinks of many of his critics. “I can’t say anymore because I just don’t want to influence the flow of the information,” the host told his online audience in the nearly 20-minute podcast of his FNC pink slipping. “I don’t want the media to take what I say and misconstrue it,” he noted, taking a swipe at a familiar foe, the MSM. “However you, as a loyal O’Reilly listener, have a right to know, I think, down the lane what exactly happened. And we are working in that direction, ok?”
“Hey, I missed you guys, welcome to the No Spin News,” is how an almost nonchalant O’Reilly actually kicked off the Podcast Monday and then saying, “a completely different experience than you’ve had in the past and everybody’s listening.”
With stories about President Trump’s poll ratings, the French election, and the public return of Barack Obama today, O’Reilly explained that this podcast would be his new primary venture for the time being. “As we develop the website, we’ll have guests and things like that and this will become longer and longer into a genuine news program, that’s the vision right now,” he detailed in a format that seemed very close to what’s he’d been doing on TV on FNC and the radio since the mid-1990s.
According to sources, work on O’Reilly’s podcast was going on almost right up to its launch at 7 PM ET today, after what seemed like a brief crash of the doubtlessly well turned to site. Feeding his impressive fanbase, O’Reilly will be podcasting all week, according to what he told listeners today. The podcast is usually available only to paying premium members on the site but is currently free until May 1 – which is a smart sure fire way to get subscriptions soaring in the next few days.
Even though O’Reilly spoke later in the podcast of how he and FNC “made history” and put “cable news on the map,” which the 1980 debuting CNN might differ with, there was no mention of their former star’s return or remarks on his former home of FNC this afternoon at 7 PM ET.
Reportedly having been handed a $25 million exit check last week as Rupert Murdoch and his sons decided the latest stain on FNC’s already well tarnished reputation was only going to grow as more advertisers fled The Factor and more women came forward with tales of inappropriate behavior, O’Reilly’s quick media return Monday signaled the dexterity that helped make him the top rated show on cable news for decades and a gravitational giant in the information universe.
Silent in the immediate days that followed, except for a statement on April 19 blaming “completely unfounded claims” for his departure, O’Reilly let the internet do the talking for him on Sunday when a banner appeared on his personal website proclaiming. “The No Spin News Returns April 24 7 PM Eastern.”
Get ready… the No Spin News resumes tonight on https://t.co/rryWmyXe7C. Everybody can hear it all this week at 7pm Eastern.
— Bill O’Reilly (@billoreilly) April 24, 2017
Having been battered by still on-going claims of sexual harassment to female anchors, contributors and reporters by now ex-FNC boss Roger Ailes, who was escorted out with a $40 million parachute last summer, FNC saw the O’Reilly saga began its scandalized freefall when the New York Times’ published an extensive expose on April 1 this year. The no foolin’ piece detailed the $13 million in settlements that the recently reupped host and the company paid out over the last 15 years to at least five women.
After words of support for O’Reilly from President Donald Trump, no stranger to allegations of sexual harassment himself, FNC asserted days later that the Factor host was going off the air on a long scheduled vacation until April 24 – one from which he never returned to their airwaves.
Whether or not his best selling The Killing of publishing franchise continues, O’Reilly will be out among the folks in the next few months with two sold out on-stage appearances at the NYCB Theatre in Westbury set for June 17
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