Schadenfreude, Bill O'Reilly Edition

One of Bill O'Reilly's sexual harassment victims is now suing him.

There was a settlement with him some years back, but O'Reilly could not keep his mouth site, and the agreement included mutual non-disparagement clauses, so she gets another bite at the apple:

Looking for a biography of fired Fox News host Bill O’Reilly? Try this one, with the title: “The Man Who Would Not Shut Up.”

Prophetic. The fallen cable news star was sued Monday in a New York federal court for, essentially, failing to shut up. Some background: As the New York Times reported in a career-killing April 1 article, O’Reilly, along with his employer, had settled several cases with female colleagues alleging mistreatment and sexual harassment over a 20-year career at Fox News. One of them was Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, a producer who, in 2002, ended up on the wrong end of an O’Reilly tantrum. Sexual harassment was not alleged, though Bernstein reached a settlement and left Fox News.

………

The complaint filed Monday comes from Witlieb Bernstein, who alleges breach of contract — she and O’Reilly signed non-disparage and confidentiality agreements as part of the 2002 settlement — and defamation. Written by Neil Mullin and Nancy Erika Smith of Smith Mullin, P.C., it spits at O’Reilly’s attempts to save face. The statements published in the media, notes the complaint, try to paint O’Reilly as a “target” of extortionate claims. “This is false,” reads the complaint. “In fact, he is a serial abuser and Ms. Bernstein’s complaints against him were far from extortionate.” Another element of the complaint addresses O’Reilly’s oft-repeated insistence that he was never the subject of a complaint to human resources departments over his career. “I never mistreated anyone,” he said in one interview. He also alleged that the charges against him were “politically and financially motivated.”

“In fact, Mr. O’Reilly is the liar,” says the complaint, which also lists Fox News as a defendant. “He mistreated Ms. Bernstein. She was forced out of her job at Fox News and paid a settlement because of his mistreatment.” Contrary to O’Reilly’s claims, Witlieb Bernstein did indeed go to human resources and “other company executives” to raise her complaints about O’Reilly, argues the suit. That she apparently got nowhere isn’t a surprise: The HR department at the time was a captive hive of Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who was ousted in summer 2016 over sexual-harassment claims and died in May. In response to the Ailes and O’Reilly scandals, Fox News has strengthened its HR functions; the HR chief now reports to 21st Century Fox, and not to Fox News.

I am extremely amused.