2016: The Year In Bill O’Reilly

Whether or not you like Bill O’Reilly, he has certainly made a huge impact in 2016. He has offended and disgusted many, while thrilling and offering “real” news to others. Mr. O’Reilly has become just as much of celebrity as many of those whom he reports on. Let’s take a look at some of the Fox News host’s most talked about moments in 2016.

Comments on Slavery

Bill O’Reilly responded to a speech that Michelle Obama made at the DNC in July. As the Los Angeles Times noted, Mrs. Obama summarized how far things have come since the White House used slaves to help build the presidential building. On his show, O’Reilly praised Michelle’s speech, but since he is such a historian, he wanted to note the fact that the slaves who helped then were treated differently from other slaves — they were well-fed and had decent housing.

O’Reilly’s comments weren’t intended to be racist, but it didn’t matter to most of the mainstream media. Twitter went after the Fox News host with a vengeance.

Slaves built the White House-
Historians Respond to Bill O'Reilly whitewashing slavery-https://t.co/M7hFwR0FNo via @wordpressdotcom

— Wendy Smith, who knows lots about earliest Toronto (@wendysmithTO) August 3, 2016

Losing Custody of Children

Losing custody of his children had nothing to do with The O’Reilly Factor, but the media still went in on O’Reilly. Several sites referred to Bill O’Reilly as a hypocrite since it was reported that Bill lost custody due to physically assaulting his wife. However, as Snopes pointed out in May of 2016, this simply wasn’t true.

“Published court documents didn’t suggest O’Reilly ‘lost custody’ of his children due to domestic violence or for any other salacious reason; O’Reilly’s ‘young daughter’ was 17 at the time of the ruling; O’Reilly was not originally awarded sole or primary custody of his children and thus was unable to ‘lose’ it.”

O’Reilly has vehemently denied ever assaulting his wife.

Defending Roger Ailes Against Sexual Harassment Accusations

In 2004, Bill O’Reilly was accused of sexual harassment against a co-worker, Andrea Mackris. As the Inquisitr reported last May, Mackris accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment and produced excerpts from a number of conversations with O’Reilly in which he allegedly made a number of explicit statements and odd sexual propositions. O’Reilly countersued Mackris for extortion, but both suits were eventually dropped as the result of a settlement.

Because of this, some found it ironic that Bill O’Reilly defended Fox News’ boss Roger Ailes from his accusations. The Huffington Post happily noted all of the things O’Reilly had been accused of in the past. Roger Ailes eventually resigned from Fox News.

The O’Reilly Factor Takes Over Chinatown

In October of 2016, Bill O’Reilly sent his mini-me, Jesse Watters, to Chinatown in New York City. As the Mercury News described, some people took offense with the segment.

“Members of the Asian community are angry over a segment that ran Monday on The O’Reilly Factor during which an interviewer [Watters] walked through New York’s Chinatown asking people to do karate, whether he should bow to greet them, and if they could ‘take care of North Korea for us.'”

As one can see from the video above, it wasn’t very politically correct, and many thought it completely stereotyped Asians. However, according to Talking Points Memo, Bill O’Reilly defended the segment and accused the liberal media of taking it out of context.

Accused of Defending White Supremacy

According to Inquisitr on December 20, Tuesday, O’Reilly said on his show that he believed the real reasons the Democrats wanted to abandon the Electoral College was because of race. He noted that if the Electoral College was thrown out, all candidates had to do was go to some of the biggest cities and states since they are heavily filled with minorities, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.

Soon, liberal websites were on the hunt. Fusion accused O’Reilly of singing the praises of white supremacy, while Vox inferred that O’Reilly argued for the Electoral College because it keeps white voters in power. Bill O’Reilly hasn’t yet responded to any of these accusations, but you can bet he will when he returns on The O’Reilly Factor next week.

[Featured Image by Rob Kim/Getty Images]