John Huddy, a former Fox News correspondent who was fired after his sister spoke out against Bill O’Reilly, has hired a lawyer, he told TheWrap.
Huddy, who worked in Jerusalem, was terminated on Oct. 23, the same day his sister, former Fox News anchor Juliet Huddy, talked about her experiences with O’Reilly to NBC’s Megyn Kelly. Juliet Huddy settled a sexual harassment suit against O’Reilly earlier this year.
“At this point I’m retaining a lawyer to fight Fox’s false accusations,” John Huddy said. “In my experience at FNC and to my knowledge I have never seen someone summarily fired the way I was. What I have seen is Fox renewing the contracts of people accused of sexual harassment, assault, lewd behavior and fabricating stories.”
The network has maintained that the dismissal was related to a “physical altercation” involving John Huddy earlier this month. “”Following a thorough investigation into a physical altercation earlier this month, FOX News made the decision to sever ties with Jerusalem-based correspondent John Huddy. The network’s investigation concluded last week, and due to observation of the Sabbath on Friday, terminated Huddy’s employment this morning,” the network said in a statement Oct. 23.
John Huddy denied any physical altercation occurred.
“There was never any ‘physical altercation’ as alleged by Fox. The first I heard I was terminated for a ‘physical altercation’ was by reading it in the news. It simply didn’t happen.” he said.
Huddy said the incident Fox News appeared to be referencing was an argument he had at the Barcelona airport on Oct. 12, after a freelance photographer pushed an equipment cart at him. Huddy said that there was nothing physical about the exchange.
He called Fox News “a company that specializes in deceit. It is a company that tries to silence people who speak out by intimidation, slander and threats. They did it to my sister and now they’re trying to do it to me.”
Huddy added that part of that effort included Fox News’ seizure of all his communications equipment.
“Fox confiscated all means of communication I had — phones, computers and even my car,” he said.
O’Reilly was forced out of Fox News after numerous sexual harassment settlements came to light. Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that he paid out a whopping $32 million to a woman who accused him of “repeated harassment, a nonconsensual sexual relationship and the sending of gay pornography and other sexually explicit material to her.”
O’Reilly has denied any wrongdoing, and said he paid the settlement to spare his children from embarrassment.