Accusations pile up on Bill O'Reilly, as new accuser claims he called her 'hot chocolate'
Another woman has accused Fox News star Bill O'Reilly of unwanted advances and sexual harassment, The Hollywood Reporter reported on Tuesday.
The woman, an unnamed African-American clerical worker at Fox News, alleges that in 2008, O'Reilly leered at her and called her "hot chocolate," her attorney, Lisa Bloom, told the Reporter.
Bloom also represents Wendy Walsh, a former Fox News contributor whose claim that O'Reilly reneged on a job offer after she rebuffed his advances in 2013 was detailed in an explosive New York Times investigation earlier this month. The report found that the host and Fox News had paid out $13 million to 5 women who had accused O'Reilly of unwanted advances.
The latest accuser, Bloom said, did not work for O'Reilly while she was harassed, but that his office was near her desk.
"He would never talk to her, not even hello, except to grunt at her like a wild boar," Bloom said. "He would leer at her. He would always do this when no one else was around and she was scared."
Bloom added that her client is not looking for any payment and that "she just wants them to know her story." Addressing the fact that the woman came forward about her experience 9 years after the fact, Bloom said her client was afraid she would be fired "if she told him to knock it off."
She continued: "Now that she's aware this is all in the news, she's decided to phone in a complaint to the Fox News hotline."
Bloom and Walsh also separately phoned in Walsh's complaint against O'Reilly to the hotline, after which the network's parent company, 21st Century Fox, announced it was opening an investigation into Walsh's claim.
The allegations against O'Reilly date back to 2002 and include complaints of verbal abuse, lewd comments, unwanted advances, and phone calls "in which it sounded as if Mr. O'Reilly was masturbating, according to documents and interviews," the Times reported.
O'Reilly embarked on an abrupt 2-week vacation amidst fallout from the accusations against him and a mass advertiser exodus from his show's timeslot.