One ofBill O’Reilly’s accusers, Andrea Mackris, is finally sharing her story.
In an interview withThe Daily Beastpublished on Tuesday, Mackris, 50, reportedly broke her NDA and opened up about the alleged harassment she claims she experienced from O’Reilly and the subsequent lawsuit that followed. Mackris was a 33-year-old producer who worked under O’Reilly at Fox News when she sought legal action.
“Here was my boss, a man who held my career and future in his hands,” she told the publication, “Acknowledging that he knew I’d never consented but he didn’t care.”
Mackris considered her dynamic with O’Reilly to initially be positive since they “worked so well together.” According to Mackris, their professional relationship shifted when she broke up with her fiancé after eight years together. O’Reilly “started to hit” on her over dinner, Mackris claimed.
“He was talking about vibrators and masturbating and he needed a younger lover,” she alleged. “It came out of left field. He had never spoken to me like that.”
In response to the report, a spokesperson for Mr. O’Reilly said: “Because of Bill O’Reilly’s continuing success, we expected the partisan political smears to begin again. Mr. O’Reilly will see his adversaries in court, including the woman who blatantly violated a civil agreement signed 17 years ago and the internet site which collaborated with her. This kind of exposition must stop and we are confident the legal system will do that.”
During the interview with Daily Beast, Mackris said that dinners of that caliber with O’Reilly continued but they were “always his idea.” She eventually left Fox News for CNN but later returned to the Rupert Murdoch-created company. Upon coming back to Fox News, Mackris claimed that O’Reilly’s harassment continued, even after she requested that he stop.
“When you’re dealing with a malignant narcissist, who is a sexual predator, you saying no is really not the point. He’s not listening,” she said. “So, it didn’t matter what I did. It wasn’t about me.”
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Mackris signed off on the 2004 lawsuit settlement agreement 16 days after filing — despite not wanting to. “I was so upset, screaming and crying that I wasn’t going to sign it, that I wanted to go to trial, so [legal team member] Ben[edict Morelli] said, ‘Can we clear the room and have [attorney] David [Ratner] speak to Andrea,'” recalled Mackris, who reportedly received a multi-million dollar settlement. “So everyone left except David. He said, ‘No one believes you, and you’ll never be hired again, and if you walk out of this room like this, no other lawyers will work with you. You didn’t hire us to go to trial, you hired us to make him stop.'”
Denying Mackris’ recollection of the events in a statement to the publication, Ratner said, “No one yelled. No one screamed, no one threatened.”
“After several hours of negotiations Kasowitz said that $9 million was the final offer. Andrea read and signed the settlement agreement. She knew that the agreement contained an NDA because her portion of the settlement was paid in three annual installments to ensure that she did not violate the NDA… I am distressed that Andrea’s memory is so faulty,'” continued Ratner.
A Fox News spokesperson also issued a statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday regarding Mackris’ interview with The Daily Beast.
“The claims outlined in this report took place under the leadership of Roger Ailes, who along with Bill O’Reilly and the management referred to here, have been long gone from the network,” the statement began.
“Since the summer of 2016, FOX News has worked tirelessly to transform the company culture, including naming a new chief executive, tripling the size of our HR footprint, designating a new senior leadership team predominantly comprised of women and establishing a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council,” the statement continued. “We have also instituted mandatory in-person, live harassment prevention training, designated multiple avenues to report ‘concerning behavior’ including an anonymous alert line, enhanced company-wide communication with quarterly company meetings and mentoring events, as well as implemented a zero tolerance policy regarding workplace misconduct of any kind for which we engage outside independent firms to handle all investigations.”
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The Fox News spokesperson added that “no other media company has undergone such a comprehensive and continuous overhaul which resulted in our designation as aGreat Place to Worklast year.”
O’Reilly had been with Fox News Channel for more than 20 years. He hostedThe O’Reilly Factor, previously namedThe O’Reilly Report, from 1996 to 2017.
source: people.com
