“Sex and the City” star Kristin Davis said former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly once offered her some help she didn’t want.
The actor divulged earlier this week that she ran into O’Reilly at an event while her show was still on air, and the conservative commentator expressed outrage at its creator.
“He said, ‘If I ever see Darren Star, I’m gonna punch him in the face,’” Davis recalled during Monday’s episode of her “Are You a Charlotte?” podcast. “I was just like, ‘What’s happening?’ And he goes, ‘I can’t believe what he makes you guys do.’”
“I was like, you know, ‘We really love our show,’” she continued. “Like, ‘We’re fine.’”
“He was, like, aggressively critical,” she added.
“That’s such a microcosm of culture though,” said her guest, internet personality Blakely Thornton. “Like a crazy misogynist … verbally assaulting you about how they’re going to help you, and you’re like, ‘I’m good.’”
“I know!” Davis said. “And then, like, what happens with him happens with him.”
“Sex and the City” aired weekly on HBO from 1998 to 2004 and chronicled the friendships and sex lives of four women living in New York City. It depicted their romantic encounters and relationships with heart, humor and no shortage of nudity.
“The O’Reilly Factor” premiered the same day Fox News was launched as a network on Oct. 7, 1996, and aired nightly until April 2017, when the New York Times reported $13 million had been paid out to numerous women who accused O’Reilly of sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior.
More than half of the advertisers quickly jumped ship, prompting the show’s cancellation.
In October 2017, the New York Times reported he had paid former Fox News analyst Lis Wiehl $32 million to settle a sexual harassment case.
Wiehl claimed at the time that they had a nonconsensual sexual relationship, during which O’Reilly repeatedly harassed and shared sexually explicit material with her. The former Fox News pundit has since started a podcast called “No Spin News.”
Davis only recalled the bizarre encounter with O’Reilly after her guest, Thornton, remembered seeing “some white male pundit” in the 1990s condemning the “Sex and the City” cast for their nude scenes — and “actively calling you guys whores.”
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“Was it Bill O’Reilly?” Davis asked.
The show went on to win seven of the 54 Emmys it was nominated for, and not only spawned two movie installments but a followup sequel series titled “And Just Like That…” in 2021 that is on track for a third season later this year.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
