An old clip from a Barbara Walters interview might be coming back to haunt Geraldo Rivera.
Rivera took a lot of heat Wednesday for tweeting his defense of newly-fired NBC anchor Matt Lauer. The Fox News personality called Lauer’s alleged actions (which reportedly included the former Today host exposing himself to a woman) “courtship,” and said that the news is a “flirty business.”
Sad about @MLauer great guy, highly skilled & empathetic w guests & a real gentleman to my family & me. News is a flirty business & it seems like current epidemic of #SexHarassmentAllegations may be criminalizing courtship & conflating it w predation. What about #GarrisonKeillor?
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 29, 2017
A jerk’s a jerk in dating. #SexHarassment should be confined to situations where superior imposes himself on subordinate who feels unable to complain because of power of perp or feared consequences to victim’s employment. Shouldn’t be used to get even w bad bosses or hated ex’s
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 29, 2017
#SexHarassment allegations should require: 1-made in a timely fashion-say w/n 5 yrs. 2-some contemporaneous corroboration, like witnesses, electronic or written communications. W $ settlements in multi-millions slight chance exists some victims are motivated by more than justice
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 29, 2017
This issue is so red hot right now there is no room for any thought or opinion but hang em high. If News wasn’t (formerly) a flirty biz then how do we explain so many newsroom courtships that have led to happy marriages?
— Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) November 29, 2017
In the wake of the firestorm the longtime TV personality made for himself, a clip of a 1991 interview Barbara Walters did with Bette Midler has been circulating around the web.
Walters asked Midler to react to Rivera’s claim in an autobiography that the two of them had an “affair.” Initially, Midler laughed it off, saying that Rivera’s “penis went to his head.”
Midler then recalled the time she met him in the early ’70s. She alleges that while shooting an interview, Rivera and his producer “pushed” her into a bathroom, “broke two poppers and pushed them under [her] nose,” and groped her.
“I did not offer myself up on the altar of Geraldo Rivera. He was unseemly, his behavior was unseemly.”
Before moving on, she told Walters had she known he was going to become a “slimy talk show host,” she “wouldn’t have let him in the room” and that these things could “come back to haunt” her.
Watch the clip above, via ABC.
