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Michael J. Gaynor The lesson of September 11 was not lost on Bill O’Reilly. Bill O’Reilly launched a preemptive strike to limit anticipated damage. Bill O'Reilly filed the first lawsuit. He accused Andrea Mackris, his “The O’Reilly Factor” producer, and her attorney of attempting to blackmail him. Within hours Ms. Mackris filed a countersuit, claiming that O’Reilly had repeatedly harassed her sexually, by speaking to her often and explicitly about phone sex, vibrators, threesomes, masturbation, and his sexual experiences and sexual fantasies. The 22-page Mackris complaint had to have been already prepared, lending credence to the idea that O’Reilly had refused an opportunity to buy her silence, which undoubtedly seemed to be an invitation to pay blackmail to O’Reilly. The detail of the Mackris complaint suggests that Ms. Mackris has a college friend to support her case and at least one tape recording of a conversation of which O’Reilly, a husband and a father, should be ashamed. BUT, it also suggests that Ms. Mackris is not completely credible, and had a backup plan to destroy O’Reilly and to discredit Fox News if her plan to obtain millions of dollars for a promise of confidentiality failed (as it obviously did). Is Bill O’Reilly the morally upright family man he seems to be? Or, as Ms. Mackris alleges, is he “mercurial and unpredictable…paternal and engaging at one instant, tyrannical and menacing the next,” and an unfaithful husband? Is Andrea Mackris an innocent victim?
Significantly, the Mackris complaint appears to be designed to have a political impact as well as a legal one.
It charges that O’Reilly “preach[s] the principles of the so-called ‘compassionate conservatism’ espoused by George W. Bush and the Republican Party.”
Surely THAT does not constitute sexual harassment.
And surely President Bush should be respectfully referred to as President Bush, even though Ms. Mackris evidently resents him.
The Mackris complaint charges that during each of Ms. Mackris’ periods of employment under O’Reilly’s supervision (May 2002 through January 2004 and July 6, 2004 on) “BILL O’REILLY and FOX [and Westwood One and their] employees, managers, directors, officers and agents, harassed and intimidated [Ms. Mackris], and created and maintained a virulently hostile work environment through explicit, rampant, pervasive and continued sex discrimination and sexual harassment against [Ms. Mackris] and other female employees that was so offensive and severe that it detrimentally altered the terms and conditions of [Ms. Mackris’] employment.”
Ms. Mackris’ alleged ordeal supposedly arose from her need for more money after breaking up with her fiancé and O’Reilly taking her to dinner and giving her “unsolicited advice regarding her handling of future relationships with” men as well as a $9,000 raise and dinner.
O’Reilly allegedly advised Ms. Mackris “to avoid future contact with her ex-fiancé, to have manicures and pedicures and ‘pick up 23-year old men in bars,’ to attend charity events and meet men with credentials, and to otherwise spend the next year doing what she felt like doing, without thinking twice about the consequences” and “at the end of the year, they’d discuss“ a promotion for her.
After that, Ms. Mackris alleges, O’Reilly’s eyes “became glazed and bizarrely strayed in opposite directions” and, “[s]uddenly, without provocation or warning,” he told her to use a vibrator.
The Mackris complaint alleges: “BILL O’REILLY said to Plaintiff ANDREA MACKRIS: “And just use your vibrator to blow off steam.’ When Plaintiff reddened, Defendant BILL O’REILLY asked lewdly: ‘What, you’ve got a vibrator, don’t you? Every girl does.’ When Plaintiff responded indignantly, ‘No, and no, they don’t. Does your wife?’ Defendant replied: ‘Yes, in fact she does. She’d kill me if she knew I was telling you!’ Plaintiff was repulsed.”
Ms. Mackris also alleges that O’Reilly shared with her the information that he had advised another woman employed by Fox to purchase a vibrator and taught her how to use it “while telling her sexual stories over the telephone.”
Ms. Mackris supposedly shared with O’Reilly the news that “she never engaged in phone sex,” prompting O’Reilly to profess disbelief and to tell her about his encounter with a “little short brown woman” who massaged him in a cabana in Bali.
O’Reilly supposedly then offered to tell Ms. Mackris the same sexual stories, only to be told “in no uncertain terms” by a “[s]hocked and embarrassed” Ms. Mackris “that she was neither experienced in nor interested in gaining experience in telephone sex,” to O’Reilly’s “disbelief.”
But, according to Ms. Mackris, she proceeded to thank O’Reilly “for the dinner and raise,” prompting him to “respond[] suggestively: “Stick with me and I’ll take care of you,’ winked, and walked to his hotel.”
More than ten months later, O’Reilly supposedly called Ms. Mackris while she was dining with a friend and “was flirtatious, repeatedly asking [Ms. Mackris] what she and her friend were wearing.”
A few days later, when staff members were having cocktails, O’Reilly supposedly told the friend, a University of Missouri graduate, that he “would have had fun with” her and Ms. Mackris,“alluding to a menage a trois.”
That notion apparently was NOT offputting to the ladies, because, according to the Mackris complaint, they accepted O’Reilly’s dinner invitation and dined with him while he “repeatedly propositioned” them, sang “the praises of telephone sex,” offered to telephone both of them, and suggested “that the three of them ‘go to a hotel together and have the time of [their] lives.”
Supposedly, O’Reilly offered “lessons,” so the two ladies would “be equipped and ready to go when a “real man shows up in [their] lives” and urged them to “use their sexuality to their advantage so they’d have power over men, otherwise men would have power over them,” making Ms. Mackris “extremely embarrassed” and “protest[ing]: “Bill, you’re my boss.’”
Paragraph 42 of the Mackris complaint alleged as follows:
Four months later, Ms. Mackris supposedly dined again with O’Reilly, this time without her college friend.
According to Ms. Mackris, O’Reilly “once again raised the specter of telephone sex, repeatedly professing disbelief that [Ms. Mackris] had never engaged in telephone sex” and “repeatedly” (but fruitlessly) “begged [Ms. Mackris] to have telephone sex with him that night.”
About three months later O’Reilly allegedly took Ms. Mackris to dinner again and “once again tried to convince [her] to engage in telephone sex with him” and she “again adamantly refused, becoming extremely embarrassed and reminding [him] that he was her boss.” Ms. Mackris left Fox for CNN, only to have her boss there turn out to be a sexual harasser.
In April 2004, O’Reilly again invited Ms. Mackris for dinner and agreed to her condition of acceptance: that “the talk” be “professional,” so says Ms. Mackris.
At the dinner Ms. Mackris agreed to return to Fox and The O’Reilly Factor “only if he no longer engaged in inappropriate conduct,” Ms. Mackris’ complaint states.
Paragraph 54 of the Mackris complaint states: dearly she’ll wish she’d never been born. I’ll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she’d be destroyed. And besides, she wouldn’t be able to afford the lawyers I can or endure it financially as long as I can. And nobody would believe her, it’d be her word against mine and who are they going to believe? Me or some unstable woman making outrageous accusations. They’d see her as some psycho, someone unstable. Besides, I’d never make the mistake of picking unstable crazy girls like that.”
As if that would not dissuade Ms. Mackris from returning, according to paragraph 55 of the Mackris complaint, “BILL O’REILLY further sterned warned, to the effect:
If you cross FOX NEWS CHANNEL, it’s not just me, It’s [FOX President] Roger Ailes who will go after you. I’m the street guy out front making loud noises about issues, but Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.”
If you are starting to suspect the Ms. Mackris’ story in incredible and that she’s playing dirty politics, since you cannot imagine Ms. Mackris returning to work for O’Reilly if her own allegations were true, paragraph 56 of the Mackris complaint might suggest to you that she is out to discredit Fox as well as O’Reilly, and perhaps to work for Dan Rather of the forged documents.
Paragraph 56 states:
“During the course of this conversation, Defendant BILL O’REILLY bizarrely rambled further about Al Franken: ‘Ailes knows very powerful people and this goes all the way to the top.’ [Ms. Mackris] queried: ‘to the top of what?’ Defendant responded: “Top of the country. Just look at who’s on the cover of his book [Bush and Cheney], they’re watching him and will be for years. [Al Franken’s finished, and he’s going to be sorry he ever took FOX NEWS CHANNEL on.’ [Ms. Mackris] found O’REIILY’S paranoid rambling both strange and alarming.”
After the dinner, Ms. Mackris reports, she went with O’Reilly to his hotel room to watch President Bush’s press conference “without incident,” she “ridiculed President Bush, O’REILLY laughed, and decided which highlight he would focus upon during his show the next day.”
Less than a month after her return, an “excited” O’Reilly telephoned Ms. Mackris and “launched into a vile and degrading monologue about sex,” suggested that she “purchase a vibrator and name it,” described one “a woman had given him,” “climaxed,” and then told her that he “appreciate[d] the fun phone call.”
Ms. Mackris alleges that “[o]n or about August 15, 2004, Defendant BILL O’REILLY telephoned [her] at her home” and she “did not answer.”
Two days later, O’Reilly supposedly called again and left a voice message asking her to call back.
The next day Ms. Mackris did call back and left her own voice message.
The next day O’Reilly called, Ms. Mackris did not answer, and he left another voice message that he’d like to go about for a dinner to celebrate her return, the way he had supposedly suggested she thank him.
A few days later, on or about August 24, the two dined together and O’Reilly supposedly “again started talking about sex, and suggested that if he had a hotel room that night he would have invited her up,” “further suggested” that she buy a vibrator, and “again suggested: ‘We should do it together, I could coach you through it” after she “became embarrassed and told him that she was not interested.”
O’Reilly supposed turned from the subject of vibrators to Fox management and told Ms. Mackrias that Fox management considered “a woman producer to be ‘psychotic’ and that she was ‘as far as she’ll ever go at FOX.”
So Ms. Mackris stayed at FOX, became the only Fox staffer “attending the Republican national] convention with full access passes to the booth and floor,” and was assigned to interview Senator Hillary Clinton for “The O’Reilly Factor.”
During the convention, O’Reilly supposedly “once again launched into a lewd and lascivious, unsolicited and disturbing sexually-graphic talk,” even though Ms. Mackris told him “that she was not at all interested in the conversation, and despite her adamant refusal to participate in [but apparently NOT to listen to] such talk.”
Then, without the qualifying “to the effect” words previously used in her complaint, Ms. Mackris alleged that O’Reilly said” you right away, that would be the first thin[g] I’d do…yeah, we’d check into the room, and we would ordfer up some room service and uh and you’d definitely get two wines into you as quickly as I could get into you I would get ‘em into you…maybe intravenously, get those glasses of wine into you…
“You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I’d join you and you would have your back to me and I would take the little loofa thing and kinda’ soap up your back…rub it all over you, get you to relax, not water…and um…you know, you’d feel the tension drain out of you and uhyou still would be with your back to me and then I would kinda’ put my arm-it’s one of those mitts, those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it…and I would put it around front, kinda’ rub your tummy a little bit with it, and then with my other hand….”
It DOES seem that Ms. Mackris recorded this.
Supposedly, Ms. Mackris was “frightened and disturbed”; O’Reilly was suggesting various sex acts in “his perverted ravings” and using a vibrator; Ms. Mackris was “repulsed”; O’Reilly “again boasted that none of the women he’d engaged in sexual relations with would ever talk: ‘Nobody’d believe ‘em…they wouldn’t [tell] anyway, I can’t imagine any of them ever doing that ’cuz I always made friends with women before I bedded them down’”; and O’Reilly concluded with this advice: “in these days of your celibacy and your hibernation this is good for you to have a little fantasy outlet, you know, just to keep it tuned, keep that sensuality tuned until you know Mr. Right comes along and then you can put him in transaction…. I’m trying to tell you, this is good for your mental health.”
On or about September 21, O’Reilly called Ms. Mackris again and “once again, without invitation or solicitation, launched into yet another disgusting, lewd and distrubing monolgue concerning his sexual fantasies with her” and asserted that “[n]ext time” she’d “come up to [his] hotel room and [they’d make this happen,” making her feel “frightened and threatened,” according to Ms. Mackris.
The Mackris complaint should be read with suspicion, especially since it was filed at a crucial political time and apparently preceded by attempted settlement or attempted blackmail, which is at issue.
Ms. Mackris’ factual contentions should be doubted, UNLESS Ms. Mackris provides confirmation.
If what Ms. Mackris is alleging about Fox IS true, other women employed by Fox should be speaking out and suing Fox.
And Ms. Mackris surely should not have returned to such a horrible place on July 6, 2004. (Ms. Mackris claims that O’Reilly promised to behave if she returned, but did not explain why she believed him.)
Bill O’Reilly should take a lesson from American history and admit that he made a mistake.
He should say what that mistake was and deny what he can truthfully deny.
Bill O’Reilly’s credibility is now at stake.
If he does not tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he will regret it.
If he does, he will be better for it and Ms. Mackris will fail to destroy him.
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