O’Reilly reportedly paid $32 million harassment settlement before signing new Fox contract

Fired Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly paid $32 million to settle a sexual harassment claim just before he signed his last contract with Fox News.

A report in the New York Times published Saturday said O’Reilly made the payment to Lis Wiehl, a longtime contributor to his program, who alleged that O’Reilly forced her into a nonconsensual sexual relationship and sent her sexually explicit material.

The settlement was made in January, according to the Times report, just before O’Reilly signed a new four-year contract that would have paid him $25 million annually to continue as host of his top-rated prime-time program “The O’Reilly Factor.”

A representative of Fox News parent 21st Century Fox acknowledged that the company was aware of the settlement but not the financial terms.

“When the company renewed Bill O’Reilly’s contract in February, it knew that a sexual harassment lawsuit had been threatened against him by Lis Wiehl, but was informed by Mr. O’Reilly that he had settled the matter personally, on financial terms that he and Ms. Wiehl had agreed were confidential and not disclosed to the company,” the representative told the Los Angeles Times.

O’Reilly denied the allegations to the New York Times. “I have never mistreated anyone,” he said, suggesting that his downfall was “politically and financially motivated.”

O’Reilly’s new deal included a stipulation that any further sexual harassment allegations made against him could lead to his termination.

That came just a couple of months later in April, when psychologist Wendy Walsh filed a new complaint with 21st Century Fox. She accused O’Reilly of reneging on a commitment to get her a position as a paid contributor at Fox News after she rejected his advances at a 2013 dinner meeting at Hotel Bel-Air.

O’Reilly, long the highest rated personality on the cable news network, was fired April 19. Walsh’s complaint had followed the disclosure in the New York Times that a total of $13 million in payouts were made by O’Reilly and Fox News to five women who asserted they were sexually harassed or verbally abused by the host over the last 16 years.

The disclosure of the Wiehl settlement is likely to derail any hopes O’Reilly had of making a television comeback.

O’Reilly recently started TV appearances to promote his new book “Killing England,” including on his former rival Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. He has also given interviews to NBC’s “Today” and CNN.