Bill O'Reilly Taken Down By Reporter He Threatened

Bill O'Reilly was taken down by New York Times reporter he threatened in 2015

According to CNBC, Emily Steel — whose reporting in the New York Times brought down Bill O'Reilly — was threatened by the now-former Fox News host two years ago for covering his tall tales about the Falklands war.

"I am coming after you with everything I have," O'Reilly told Steel on the record in 2015. "You can take it as a threat."

Steel, who joined the Times as a media reporter in 2014, was one of the two journalists whose reporting earlier this month led advertisers to leave The O'Reilly Factor and, eventually, to the network dumping O'Reilly on Thursday. Steel and Michael S. Schmidt reported April 1 that Fox and O'Reilly had paid $13 million to silence women who accused the conservative host of sexual harassment.

Bill O'Reilly's departure comes two and a half weeks after this NYT investigation by @emilysteel and @nytmike: https://t.co/nRU2eUhedC

— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 19, 2017

In an episode of the Daily podcast from the Times after O'Reilly's ouster, Steel described spending months investigating the claims against the host in the face of "resistance" from the network.

According to Steel, she was surprised when O'Reilly was fired. The network has protected its marquee host for a long time, she said, through past allegations and other controversies.