According to a report from Gawker, the judge presiding over a bitter three-year custody dispute between Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and his ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy, heard some pretty shocking testimony about domestic abuse she suffered at the hands of O’Reilly.
Gawker’s source claims that one of O’Reilly’s daughters testified that she witnessed O’Reilly “dragging McPhilmy down a staircase by her neck, apparently unaware that the daughter was watching.”
This latest revelation, if true, would be among numerous examples of O’Reilly’s disturbing treatment of his family.
O’Reilly and McPhilmy separated in April 2010, after which McPhilmy began dating a Nassau County Police detective named Jeffrey Gross. Upon learning of their relationship, as Gawker reported in 2011, O’Reilly called up his high-placed connections within the NCPD to have something done about Gross. Since O’Reilly was helping raise money for the department’s associated charity, the Nassau County Police Department Foundation, his calls sparked an internal affairs investigation into Gross and his relationship with McPhilmy—an incredible waste of police resources, and a devious way of getting back at McPhilmy by harassing her new boyfriend.
The O’Reillys formalized their divorce in September 2011, and agreed to share custody of their school-aged children. As part of their agreement, the couple mutually agreed to assign a neutral therapist named Lynne Kulakowski to arbitrate any potential custodial disputes, should they happen to arise in the future. Shortly thereafter, however, McPhilmy learned that O’Reilly had in fact added Kulakowski to his household payroll so she could serve as a full-time nanny—in which capacity, as a judge later explained, she was required “to perform virtually all of [O’Reilly’s] parental duties.”
Gawker was able to corroborate the fact that a decision was made in the case, of which O’Reilly has appealed. Neither O’Reilly or his ex-wife commented on the story. Fox News did not respond to a request for comment either.
O’Reilly’s lack of response is especially worth noting. The anchor has spent his highly remunerated career obsessing over patterns of violence among racial minorities, particularly black people, and the apparently unique effect of violence on the integrity of black families. As he fulminated on-air in December 2014: “The astronomical crime rate among young black men—violent crime—drives suspicion and hostility. … No supervision, kids with no fathers—the black neighborhoods are devastated by the drug gangs who prey upon their own. That’s the problem!”
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