Remembering The Time Bill O’Reilly Convinced Pepsi To Drop Ludacris For "Degrading Women"
Photo of Bill O'Reilly courtesy of YouTube.
Photo of Bill O'Reilly courtesy of YouTube.
On Sunday morning, the New York Times reported that Fox News has paid over $13 million in settlements to five women who have accused political commentator Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment. Since that report came out, around 50 advertisers have taken their commercials off of his number one show the O'Reilly Factor, despite the fact that our president has supported him.
If advertisers keep dropping like this, the inevitable will happen soon. He'll be fired. Before that happens, however, let's relive an odd time in Bill O'Reilly's career: his war against Ludacris.
It started in 2002 when Bill O'Reilly went after Pepsi for using Ludacris in an ad:
"So I'm calling for all responsible Americans to fight back and punish Pepsi for using a man who degrades women, who encourages substance abuse, and does all the things that hurt particularly the poor in our society."
After O'Reilly went on his rant, which was on August 27th, 2002, Ludacris was almost immediately dropped by Pepsi. Twitter user Yashar posted great throwback footage of the next day's episode where O'Reilly continues to go after the rapper, calling him "a man who degrades women."
Karma is so interesting, isn't it?
Ludacris hasn't talked publicly about any of this. However, Hollywood Life talked to a source close to the rapper, who says “Luda’s ashamed of Bill but mostly feels bad for his ex [wife] Maureen [McPhilmy] and their children."
