Fox News Finally Got Rid of Bill O’Reilly After Reveal of Harassment They Tried to Keep Quiet

Bill O’Reilly is a bad man, and that’s if you only count the things he’s said on The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News, rather than the truly awful things that have recently come to light about his history with sexual harassment. Fox News is a bad network, but apparently that was all too bad even for them—or all of it becoming public was, anyway, since they didn’t seem to have a problem with it before.

OR it was really because big advertisers started to pull out of his show, so it really all came down to money, integrity be damned.

But yes, now that O’Reilly’s alleged actions have become publicized—including, but not limited to calling a Black woman “hot chocolate”—Fox News, who previously helped him settle harassment claims out of court, is finally calling it quits on the Donald Trump prototype. You know, the out-of-touch dude who gets angry at things he sees in the news and then says incorrect, callous, and/or ignorant things about them.

But for now, we’re going to revel in the small victory that, in this rare instance, a man was held accountable. I mean, if we can’t manage to hold someone who’s running for president accountable for their treatment of women, we need something—some small glimmer of hope for the future—to hold onto and point to and say, “This is not socially acceptable, and we look forward to a time when businesses don’t allow it to be acceptable in private, either.”

It’s hard to celebrate too much, for reasons including the fact that these allegations were kept quiet for so long; because he still got to have a long, successful career that Fox touted in their memo about letting him go; because he’s going to continue being rich, famous, and probably fine; because whoever they replace him with will also be terrible; because there are plenty more where he came from who are still out there causing harm; and because his alleged actions were awful, but we’re still taking a little pleasure in imagining how he’s probably reacting to all this.

Bill O’Reilly, now broadcasting to you live from his basement.

We’re also enjoying Twitter’s reactions:

(featured image: Fox)

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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