October 14, 2004

What's Wrong Baby? Don't like Loofa Mitts?

'No Spin Zone' Pundit Accused of Sexually Harassing Fox Producer

Bill O'Reilly became embroiled in a salacious "he-said-she-said" scandal yesterday, trading lawsuits with a Fox News producer who says the conservative talking head sexually harassed her.

A Fox News producer is suing the married talk show host for sexual harassment, saying he tried to have phone sex with her against her wishes three times and talked about his sexual fantasies with the woman both at work and in social situations. O'Reilly - the host of the top cable news show in America, "The O'Reilly Factor" -- countersued yesterday, claiming Andrea Mackris and her lawyer were trying to extort $60 million in "hush money."

According to the complaint filed yesterday, O'Reilly spoke explicitly to Mackris about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, the loss of his virginity and sexual fantasies. During a phone conversation this August, Mackris, 33, said O'Reilly suggested she buy a vibrator and was clearly excited. Before hanging up, she said, O'Reilly told her: "I appreciate the fun phone call."

She contended that he made a similar call Sept. 21, ending that one by saying: "Next time you'll come up to my hotel room and we'll make this happen." The lawsuit contends that O'Reilly's "perverted ravings" included boasts about his large manhood, his fondness for oral sex and his desire to massage her with loofa mits.

On several occasions, O'Reilly was masturbating while talking to Mackris on the phone, the suit says.

Last night on his TV show, an enraged O'Reilly lashed out at his accuser, who was also a former intern for the George H.W. Bush White House in 1991 and a graduate of Columbia Journalism School.

"[This is] the single most evil thing I've ever experienced and I've seen a lot," O'Reilly said. "But these guys have picked the wrong guy … and we'll see who's left standing at the end."

A father of two young children, O'Reilly said the charges have caused him "great mental strain, anguish and severe emotional distress." According to the harassment suit, O'Reilly took Mackris out to dinner in May with another woman in Manhattan, where he allegedly propositioned them, suggesting that the three of them "go to a hotel together and have the time of their lives." On a later date, O'Reilly told Mackris he wanted to take her to the Caribbean, where he wanted to "take a shower with (her) right away."

Mackris, according to the complaint, was repulsed by O'Reilly's verbal advances. In its lawsuit, Fox claims that Mackris never complained to Fox authorities about sexual harassment by O'Reilly before Sept. 29, when her lawyer Benedict Morelli took the case. While acknowledging that he shared "dinner and cocktails" with Mackris - and even watched a presidential press conference alone with him in his hotel room - he denied engaging in any physical or sexual assaults or "offensive touching."

Mackris, 33, worked for O'Reilly for four years before taking a job at CNN earlier this year, but the producer went back to Fox in July. According to O'Reilly's lawsuit, Morelli later showed Fox brass a draft complaint including quote by the star that led them to believe his accuser was taping their conversations.

"The length of the quotes and the specific verbiage used made it appear that Mackris was taping O'Reilly during the conversations," the lawsuit contends. O'Reilly's suit claims the charges are motivated by "greed and Morelli's political connections." Morelli, his firm, and his wife are supporters and contributors to the Democratic Party, the suit claims. It also charged the suit was timed to hit to Fox and O'Reilly just before the election.

First of all, keep in mind that I have no opinion regarding whether or not the allegations against O'Reilly are true. That's for a jury to decide. And as much as I can't stand BOR, just because he's an assmonkey, doesn't mean he's a sexual harasser, though he could be. (I wouldn't put it past him after watching the way he harasses people on his show - albeit not sexually, thank god). I love how O'Reilly likes to use stupid buzz phrases like "hush money." What does "hush money" have to do with this? She wants him to pay her to hush? I think you're well past that phase of the relationship now! The bitch just blew the door wide open bucky!

And on top of it all, it's a liberal conspiracy! Hahaaaa! That's fresh. But then again, you just never know...

A couple things don't sit well with me about this woman's story. First of all, I don't understand the concept of staying on the phone with a person who is harassing, offensive, sexually explicit or making you in any way uncomfortable. Could she say "I'm not having this conversation with you, and if you continue to talk to me like this, I'm going to do something about it and you're not going to like it." I understand being talked to in a way that makes you uncomfortable and not confronting the person or objecting to it, but this seems ridiculous! What was she doing on the other end of the line during these conversations? Giggling? Reciting her ABCs? Humming and filing her nails? I just am not getting a clear picture from this article about how these conversations actually went. Did she say "that's enough, I am not going to tolerate these offensive rantings from you anymore. If you don't stop, I'm going to take action against you"? and did he say "If you say anything to anyone I'll make sure you never work in this town again"??? I don't know.

For some reason, I feel like if this was as much of a problem as she says it was, it would have been addressed sooner. In that respect, I can imagine BOR may have a point about the timing of the filing of the complaint being synchronized with the leadup to election. All the same, I'm not ready to assume that the allegations are totally false.

And the loofa thing! Oh my god. That is just too much. Picturing BOR saying any of those things is enough to tickle my gag reflex, but the image of him saying "I want to rub you all over with loofa mitts"? That is just plain hilarious.

Note: Reading the complaint gives a clearer (and more detailed) picture of what exactly happened here.

Posted by Maria at October 14, 2004 11:04 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Look at his nasty face... Christ they should have it next to the Merriam Webster dictionary definition of 'deviate'. Yuck. Just another smug asshole caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Posted by: Richard at October 14, 2004 06:15 PM

Hahaaaha Richard! He really does have the mug of a man who would be caught dead wearing women's undies in a sleazy hotel room with a two bit hooker by his side. And then we would find out that wasn't even the real scandal! Hahaa.

Posted by: Maria at October 14, 2004 06:49 PM

Look what we did to him! (Scroll down to "In the Fox News Limo" and "You Don't Want to See This.")

Posted by: Mullah Billdoug at October 14, 2004 10:15 PM

Well..since I'm not a fan of ole Bill I really don't care one way or the other..just proves what I've thought all along...most of the guys are just sleazeballs..telling the world how to live and look at em..I bet they don't have "skeletons" in their closets but full fledged GRAVEYARDS.

Posted by: sandy at October 15, 2004 10:23 AM

While spinning the radio dial I came across Michael Savage saying that he would wait for the facts to come out and then a minute later lambasting the girl: Obviously, if she didn't want the phone call, she would have just hung up.

Posted by: Karlo at October 15, 2004 04:35 PM

I lambasted her slightly here, but the reality is that I don't know the whole story and I tend to believe that O'Reilly is such a scumbucket that it's not unlikely that the allegations are true. Sometimes it's difficult to understand in sexual harassment cases, why women do not report these things sooner or do something about it, but many times there are circumstances that are not known to a person just glancing across the story. Like the fact that in her complaint she alleges that the entire Fox News environment was so permissive of sexual harassment that she didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone about it, for fear that she would be fired or that they would automatically defend O'Reilly. It's a reasonable fear. The other thing is that as women, we are sometimes harassed and don't deal with it the way that -- when we think about it later -- we wish we had. Sometimes you are so frozen that you laugh it off or try not to take it so seriously, but later on a feeling of shame can take over. Like you allowed yourself to be victimized and didn't stand up for yourself. I have experienced this personally. I have been sexually harassed and didn't do anything about it and it's a horrible feeling. What looks so simple to another person like "why didn't you just hang up the phone?" is sometimes not quite as simple when it is happening to you. So I honestly don't feel a sense of judgment towards her, though it may have seemed that way in my post. I'm interested to see the way the whole thing plays out.

Posted by: Maria at October 15, 2004 04:45 PM

The complaint was an interesting read. It brought some questions to mind:

Why did Ms. Mackris work for him as long as she did the first time? Is putting up with that kind of treatment the norm in the media biz? Does it just "come with the territory?"

Why did she return to Fox after leaving for CNN? I'm not really buying that she believed that she was going to be treated differently the second time. Also did she really believe that they'd really pay her more? As if doing it for the money is a good enough reason to put up with unwanted sexual advances at work...

In ink, his fantasies look mundane and laughable, literally - though perhaps when they're coming from your boss late at night it's more intimidating. If not inspiring of gut-wrenching laughter, I can only imagine "surreal," though, since he's a pretty stringy old man with beadly little eyes and a big mouth.

Also, the fact that Fox had settlement talks at all says a lot. The fact that they weren't going for the $60 million figure and called it extortion sounds more like negotiation tactics to get a lower number, though now all bets are off thanks to the suit she filed.

Posted by: at October 16, 2004 09:59 PM