New Tork- TV host Bill O’Reilly suffered “the worst day of my life” yesterday after being thrust into a sleazy sex scandal – one so explosive, it has forced the talk-show loudmouth into silence.
“I have been advised to keep my big mouth shut, and I have promised to do that,” O’Reilly told the Daily News from his Fox News studio yesterday.
But he didn’t.
“This has been the worst day of my life,” O’Reilly said. “I am getting hounded by the press, and I knew I would be. I knew that they were going to kill me, but what am I going to do?”
O’Reilly, 55, was accused Wednesday of making “disgusting” phone calls and remarks to Andrea Mackris, 33, an associate producer on the hugely popular Fox show “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Hours before Mackris sued him, O’Reilly, a married father of two who lives on Long Island, struck the first blow – filing his own lawsuit claiming that Mackris and her lawyer, Benedict Morelli, tried to extort $60 million from him and Fox News to buy her silence.
And he used the airwaves to tell his 3 million viewers, “These people picked the wrong guy.”
But neither Morelli nor Mackris was backing down yesterday.
“This is a man who went on TV and said, ‘They don’t know what kind of guy they’re messing with.’ When somebody says something like that, I take it as a threat against me, my family, my client and her family,” Morelli said.
He then raised the stakes, suggesting the scandal could destroy O’Reilly’s career.
“They have made it personal. When this case is dismissed, not only are they going to be embarrassed, but they are going to see who is left standing. I think this can bring O’Reilly down.”
Mackris claimed O’Reilly, a best-selling author and writer, started making sexual comments to her after she split with her fiancé in 2001. The situation worsened after she returned to Fox following a brief stint working for CNN earlier this year, she said.
Closely guarded by her lawyer, Mackris appeared on NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “Good Morning America” yesterday.
“I felt extremely threatened for many reasons,” she said.
“There were definitely threats. It crossed the line when I … came back [to Fox] in July. It went much further than it ever had.
“The language was ratcheted up. He pushed the boundaries further and further from what I had already established. I came back because he agreed to not ever talk to me that way again.”
Her lawyer said, “She really didn’t feel she had to do something until she returned from CNN. It started in 2002, but when she returned from CNN it started crossing the line, and it wasn’t until then she said, ‘My God, I have got to do something about it.'”
O’Reilly’s alleged remarks included telling Mackris she should use a vibrator and regaling her with tales of threesomes with Swedish stewardesses and stories of his “amazing” endowment.
Mackris claims he made three lewd phone calls to her since August in which he described fantasies involving her and sex acts he would perform on her.
She said he was clearly pleasuring himself as he spoke.
When Mackris pointed out to O’Reilly that he was her boss, she claims he replied, “You just have to suspend that.”
O’Reilly characterized Mackris’ allegations as “outrageous and I’ve got to take action. I don’t know what [Mackris] is talking about.”
Asked what his wife thinks of the accusations, O’Reilly said, “We don’t talk about any of this. It’s nothing to do with me – it’s with the lawyers.”
O’Reilly’s lawyer, Ronald Green, said Wednesday he intended to file papers demanding that evidence – including possible tape recordings of the alleged sex calls – be made public. He was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Morelli refused to confirm whether he had tape recordings, saying only, “We have concrete and unrefutable evidence that [O’Reilly] did it.”
The scandal apparently has had no effect on O’Reilly’s syndicated newspaper column, featured in 300 publications, including the Daily News. None had canceled by last night, said the syndicate’s president, Rick Newcombe.
And O’Reilly said his program was being broadcast every weeknight as usual.
He also kept the support of many of his neighbors in Plandome, L.I.
Bill Georgas, 42, co-owner of Louie’s Manhasset Restaurant, where O’Reilly is a regular, said, “He’s always been a gentleman.
“I don’t see that man they’re talking about in the news.”