Disgraced former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly called out his old employer for putting profits ahead of facts after the company agreed to pay $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.
“This is what happens when money becomes more important than honest information,” he wrote on his website.
O’Reilly, who was purged in a sexual harassment scandal in 2017, said Fox News now just tells viewers what they want to hear.
“And millions of Trump voters, to this day, want to believe the 2020 election was rigged,” he said.
O’Reilly said he examined the allegations of election fraud and found nothing a court would accept. But when he said that on his website, he said, he lost 1,000 paid subscribers.
“So be it. I did my job,” he wrote. “Money is not the motivating force in this operation. Fox News saw it differently, and now payment has been rendered. But the nightmare will continue for FNC.”
He pointed out that Fox News is facing additional lawsuits, including one from Smartmatic as well as the potential for thousands of shareholder suits.
“What a disaster,” he wrote.
O’Reilly knows a little something about massive settlements. He paid at least $45 million, including $32 million to a former Fox News analyst, after facing sexual harassment allegations.
The company was reportedly aware of the settlements, but renewed his contract anyway. The scandal ultimately cost O’Reilly his job on Fox News.
Fox News itself has also paid out millions to settle sexual harassment claims, including a reported $20 million to former “Fox and Friends” co-host Gretchen Carlson.