INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Montel Williams Fires Back At Bill O’Reilly After RNC ‘Bait And Switch’

By Victoria Miller
Published on: 07:18 PST, Jul 21, 2016

Montel Williams won’t be appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show anytime soon — and he doesn’t care. Williams walked out on a scheduled appearance he was supposed to make on The O’Reilly Factor, which aired live from the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. After O’Reilly slammed Williams on-air for not showing up for the interview, Montel set the record straight and blasted the outspoken news anchor on social media, according to People.

Montel Williams revealed that he only walked out on his O’Reilly Factor appearance because he was told at the last minute that his interview wouldn’t focus on his earlier speech about LGBT rights. Montel contends that while LGBT rights speech was a previously-agreed-upon topic for his interview, at the last minute, producers told him the interview would instead solely be about a recent poll suggesting President Barack Obama is a racist.

According to CNN Money, the trouble started when Williams arrived at the Fox News booth and was told the segment about his speech had been scratched and that the discussion was only going to be about the poll about Obama. According to Williams, he wanted to focus on the LGBT speech that they had previously agreed to talk about.

“Suddenly [Fox News host] Eric Bolling is involved and it’s all about Obama being a racist,” Williams revealed to CNN’s Dylan Byers. “I walked before air, they chased me half way around the building. My detail had to stop them… I’m solely focused on my [LGBT] speech. When that was eliminated, why stay?”

Williams later hit Twitter to post a series of messages about the incident. Montel also called O’Reilly a “coward” for never having served the country.

But Bill O’Reilly actually started the name calling. After the Fox News host announced on the air that Williams had “walked out in a huff,” he called the longtime talk show host a “coward.”

“The producer tells me he was mad about some gay thing,” O’Reilly said of Williams. “Does anyone know what gay thing Montel Williams was upset about?”

“He will never never be on this program again,” Bill later said of Montel. “He’s not a man of his word, he’s unprofessional. That is about as low as it gets.”

Montel Williams quickly took to Twitter to explain his side of the spat and he also put a video explanation on Periscope. In his video, Williams revealed that this incident was the first time he has not done an interview he was scheduled to do in at least five years. Montel also questioned why Bill was so upset over the change of plans when it was his team of producers that switched topics. Williams then unleashed a rant about O’Reilly’s use of the word “coward.”

“The word coward is usually used on people who have done most of the things that you’ve done, like embellishing lies about your credentials as a journalist, like the fact that your own daughter in a testimony in a court case… said that you dragged your ex-wife down a flight of stairs. You wanna talk about coward, homeboy?… That’s what a coward truly is, somebody who’s going to call somebody a name on air and not even to their face. I’m calling you one now, so the whole world can see it. We know who the coward is.”

Montel Williams concluded his message by telling Bill to leave him alone, adding that he “doesn’t care” if he’s never asked to be on his show again.

Take a look at the video below to see Bill O’Reilly slamming Montel Williams for walking out on his show.

[Photo by Alex B. Huckle/Getty Images]

Share this article: Montel Williams Fires Back At Bill O’Reilly After RNC ‘Bait And Switch’
Bill O'Reilly
More from Inquisitr