2023-12-21

Karppinen / Wikicommons
  • Faith: Christian - Catholic
  • Career: Public Figure
  • Birthday:  September 10, 1949

Bill O'Reilly is a conservative journalist, commentator, and television host. His broadcasting career started in the late 1970s and 1980s when he reported for local TV stations in the US and later for ABC News and CBS News. He anchored the tabloid television program "Inside Edition" from 1989 to 1995 and joined the Fox News Channel in 1996, where he hosted "The O'Reilly Factor" until 2017. He's written numerous books and hosted "The Radio Factor" from 2002 to 2009.

"The O'Reilly Factor" had been the highest-rated cable news show for 16 years, and he was described by media analyst Howard Kurtz as "the biggest star in the 20-year history at Fox News" at the time of his ousting. In early 2017, The New York Times reported that O'Reilly and Fox News paid five women approximately $13 million to settle various sexual misconduct lawsuits, which led to the network terminating O'Reilly's employment. An additional New York Times report that O'Reilly paid legal analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million for allegedly initiating a "non-consensual sexual relationship" with her led to him being dropped by the United Talent Agency and literary agency WME. He subsequently started hosting a podcast, "No Spin News."

O'Reilly was born in 1949 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. The O'Reilly family lived in a small apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey and in 1951, the family moved to Levittown on Long Island. He has a sister, Janet. O'Reilly attended St. Brigid parochial school in Westbury and Chaminade High School, a private Catholic boys' high school in Mineola. His father wanted him to attend Chaminade, but O'Reilly wanted to attend W. Tresper Clarke High School, the public school most of his closest friends would attend. He played Little League baseball and was the goalie on the Chaminade varsity hockey team.

During his high school years, he met future singer Billy Joel, who described O'Reilly as a "hoodlum." In an interview with Michael Kay on "CenterStage," O'Reilly recalled that Joel was in the Hicksville section, they were the same age, and he was a hood. After graduating from Chaminade in 1967, O'Reilly attended Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. While at Marist, he was a punter in the National Club Football Association and also wrote for the school's newspaper, "The Circle." He was an honors student who majored in history. He spent his junior year of college abroad, attending Queen Mary College at the University of London, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971.

What religion is Bill O'Reilly?

O'Reilly is part of the Catholic religion. He attended a private Catholic boys' high school in his youth. In his first book, "The O'Reilly Factor," he wrote, "My religion is Roman Catholicism. I go to church, but I'm an independent thinker."


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