Bill O’Reilly has been dropped by his talent agency following information that he paid $32million to settle a sexual harassment claim in February of this year.
The payment was made to Lis Wiehl, a former Fox News legal analyst. The New York Times reported upon the settlement on Saturday.
United Talent Agency (UTA) informed the former Fox News host of their decision to no longer continue their contract on Monday evening. The contract is set to expire at the end of this year.
O’Reilly was a client of NS Bienstock Agency for many years, and stayed with the agency when they were acquired by UTA in 2014.
The move by UTA to not re-sign O’Reilly was apparently a pressure move made by many of the agency’s top Hollywood clients. The pressure was placed upon the agency as far back as spring, when it was revealed that O’Reilly had settled harassment claims involving former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.
O’Reilly has also come under fire after leaked audio recordings of him surfaced after an interview this past weekend with two reporters from The New York Times.
The former host claimed that he is being unfairly attacked by a publication that wants to hurt his career. He went on to state: “Why don’t you be human beings for once. This is horrible, it’s horrible what I went through, horrible what my family went through… This is c**p and you know it. It’s politically and financially motivated. And we can prove it with shocking information.”
I would appear that O’Reilly had no idea that the reporters were both still recording their interview on cellular devices, despite having turned off their microphones.
According to a representative, Mark Fabiani, O’Reilly has secured new representation, but failed to name the agency willing to work with O’Reilly into the future.
Source: Daily Mail