NBC releases Megyn Kelly email to Fox complaining of O’Reilly

NBC posted an email on its website that Megyn Kelly sent to former Fox News co-presidents Bill Shine and Jack Abernethy last year blasting Bill O’Reilly’s behavior toward women while she was still at the network.

The release of the full email comes as The New York Times reported on Saturday that Fox had decided to re-sign primetime star Bill O’Reilly in February despite knowing about a $32 million settlement paid to former legal analyst Lis Wiehl, who had accused him of sexual harassment.

{mosads}”After Roger Ailes was booted from Fox in July 2016 and she was promoting her book ‘Settle For More,’ Megyn Kelly talked about sexual harassment and Fox News, and what it was like for her. Bill O’Reilly, meanwhile, shot down negative stories about Fox and said no one had ever complained about him. Kelly, on the other hand, said she had in fact voiced concerns about O’Reilly to the two co-presidents of the network,” read a preview note on Today.com.

 

“This is what she sent to former co-president Bill Shine and current president Jack Abernathy,” the note concluded.

“Perhaps he didn’t realize the kind of message his criticism sends to young women across the country about how men continue to view the issues of speaking out about sexual harassment,” Kelly wrote on Nov. 15, 2016. 

“Perhaps he didn’t realize his exact attitude of shaming women into shutting the hell up about harassment on grounds that it will disgrace the company is in part how Fox News got into the decade-long [Roger] Ailes mess to begin with,” she continued. 

“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,'” she added. 

“Whatever the reason, you’ve got a hell of a guy hosting that 8pm hour,” Kelly said. 

Shine stepped down in May just weeks after O’Reilly was ousted from the network following an April 1 report in The New York Times that five women were paid $13 million to settle sexual harassment suits.

Kelly left Fox for NBC in January after 13 years with the network. 

Wiehl, 56, appeared on a weekly segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” called “Is it Legal?” with former attorney and current host of “The Five” Kimberly Guilfoyle. She also co-hosted his radio show for a time.

Wiehl appeared on the network for 15 years starting in 2001, when the Harvard Law graduate joined as a legal analyst. The network parted ways with Wiehl in April.

Her $32 million settlement dwarfs that given to former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who received $20 million from the network in 2016 after suing former Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, who passed away in May.