Updated: 2:27 p.m.
On Thursday, after 21 years at Fox News, Bill O'Reilly lost his job at the network. O'Reilly's ouster came after a New York Times report about settlements, totaling $13 million paid to women who alleged O'Reilly had sexually harassed them.
But before he rose and fell on Fox News, O'Reilly was an anchor on Portland's KATU for a quick nine months, starting in 1984 and ending in 1985.
He might not have been at the station for long, but he is remembered for photocopying his pay stub and leaving it on the copier, where it was found by another employee who shared his salary with everyone else. It turns out he was making a lot more than other people at the station.
In an interview for the book "The Man Who Would Not Shut Up: The Rise of Bill O'Reilly," O'Reilly told Marvin Kitman about his time in Portland, "I went there for a lot of money, more money than they ever paid anybody, and I only went there for one year."
Doug Brazil, who worked at KATU from 1968 to 2001, told The Oregonian in 2015, "He really struck me as the kind of guy that was motivated to make money."
"His goals were very plain," Brazil added. "He stated at one point that he wanted to make a million dollars by the time he was 40."
In a post on Facebook Friday, Margie Boulé, who worked with O'Reilly at KATU and is a former Oregonian columnist, wrote, "Wow. Bill O'Reilly sexually harasses many women, Fox pays millions in his defense and to pay off his victims, then when advertisers pull out, Fox gives him 25 million dollars to leave."
"I worked with this man at KATU," she continued. "He was an arrogant, entitled jerk. And he was a liberal. I've said for decades this was just an act, to become rich and famous. He played everyone, and wins in the end."
On Thursday, KATU tweeted a video of a young O'Reilly with a full head of brown hair discussing New Year's Eve.
His time in Portland didn't necessarily leave him with any extra love for the city or its media. In 2003, he left an angry voice message for The Oregonian's then TV-writer Peter Ames Carlin after Carlin wrote about O'Reilly's claim that he had won a Peabody Award.
"For you to write in your column that I repeatedly said I won a Peabody Award is absolutely untrue, all right?" he said in the voice message. "I know you would want to correct something like that."
Carlin had written a column which involved recounting O'Reilly's ongoing fight with Al Franken, who was at the time coming out with a book called "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." O'Reilly was featured on the cover of the book. Franken, a Democrat, is now a U.S. senator from Minnesota.
O'Reilly continued to hold a grudge against Carlin for years, calling him "a far-left writer" and rarely fair" in 2006.
In a segment called "Anarchy in the streets" from his show "The O'Reilly Factor" in November 2016, O'Reilly said, "I lived in Portland; it's a beautiful place, but run by permissive progressive people."
"They have allowed the downtown area to become a squatter's haven," he continued. "It comes as no surprise that the City of Roses has become ground zero for anarchy."
We reached out to O'Reilly for comment on his time in Portland and will update this story if he responds.
-- Lizzy Acker
503-221-8052
lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker