Megyn Kelly: ‘False’ for Bill O’Reilly to say no one complained about harassment

Kelly told her studio audience about an email she sent to Fox News co-presidents Bill Shine and Jack Abernathy in November 2016 after O’Reilly refused to address the issue of sexual harassment at Fox in an interview for CBS, and said he was “not interested in making his network look bad.”

“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 wrote in the email.

Kelly attributed the lack of any formal human resources or legal complaint to a Fox News workplace that “was not exactly a friendly environment for harassment victims who wanted to report.”

The ex-primetime star singled out “vindictive” public relations chief Irena Briganti for continuing “to push negative stories” about women who have accused co-workers of harassment.

A lawyer for O’Reilly has since sought to undermine Kelly’s allegations by sharing thank-you notes she sent him while they were both at the broadcaster.

The parent company of Fox News, 21st Century Fox, released the following statement regarding Briganti: “Irena is a valued colleague and she has our full support.”

The bitter back-and-forth follows a New York Times article published on Saturday that reported O’Reilly paid $32 million to settle a sexual harassment claim in January 2016 just prior to signing a new contract with Fox News. O’Reilly’s representatives said the story was trying to “maliciously smear him.”

While Kelly acknowledged Fox News has introduced reforms to mitigate reporting problems, she said the culture of how accusers are treated “must stop.”

“This is not unique to Fox News,” she said. “The abuse of women, the shaming of them, the threatening, the retaliation, the silencing of them after the fact, it has to stop.”