Bill O’Reilly is hitting back at his former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly after she used her NBC morning show Monday to weigh in on his newly surfaced sexual harassment settlement claim.
Reached by the Washington Examiner, O’Reilly’s lawyer, Mark Fabiani, forwarded two signed thank-you notes Kelly apparently once gave to O’Reilly.
One of the notes thanks O’Reilly for giving a “plug” for her husband Doug Brunt’s novel. “I realize you didn’t have to do that, especially after mentioning it already,” the note said.
It also acknowledged “how supportive you have been of me” at Fox News, and called O’Reilly “a true friend and mentor.” It is signed “xoxo.”
The second note thanked O’Reilly for coming to Kelly’s baby shower. “What a class act you are, coming to my baby shower,” she wrote.
It referred to O’Reilly as “a dear friend” and it was signed by Kelly and her husband.
Neither of the notes are dated and Fabiani only said that “you can track them to the date of publication of Kelly’s husband’s book in one case and in the other to the birth of one of Kelly’s children.” A source at NBC, however, said the baby shower note was from 2009 and the other note was from 2012.
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On her show Monday, Kelly said she was shocked at a New York Times report over the weekend that said he had paid a $32 million settlement to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit by former Fox News contributor Lis Wiehl.
“What on earth would justify that amount?” she said. “What awfulness went on?”
She also criticized Irena Briganti, a Fox News communications executive, for her “vindictiveness,” claiming that Briganti pushed negative stories about women who accused former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes of sexual abuse. He and O’Reilly both denied all of the allegations.
Fox said in a statement to the Washington Examiner that Briganti is a “valued colleague and she has our full support.”
