Ah, fox news afficionados... such a short memory. It's nice to know a news network can feed on attention span issues.
In 2004, O'Reilly was sued by a former associate producer of his show, Andrea Mackris, for sexual harassment. He denied everything, and described Mackris' lawsuit as "the single most evil thing I have ever experienced, and I've seen a lot." He countersued for extortion, and took a public stance of no compromise. "My career could be ruined", O'Reilly said, "and I'm very well aware of that." Mackris' complaint, however, included such detailed descriptions of O'Reilly's allegedly sexually provocative phone calls, many observers suspected she may have tape-recorded the conversations. And two weeks after she filed her complaint, O'Reilly settled. "It's over, and I'm happy", said Mackris. "I can't say anything else, but I do appreciate everybody." There was no admission of wrongdoing, and the cash settlement was kept quiet as part of the agreement, but the Washington Post had reported a week earlier that Mackris had turned down offers as high as $2 million, so the final figure was presumably higher than that. The settlement also included a stipulation that Mackris would destroy any tapes of O'Reilly's alleged phone calls "if such tapes exist".