Bill O’Reilly Interview…

Liz Smith interviews Bill O’Reilly…

LIZ: I’ve known you almost 40 years, Bill, and in the early days, I just thought you were a good-looking news guy, but I admit I wasn’t prescient. I had no idea you’d turn out to be such a big deal! Maybe it was your conviction, your ambition, and maybe a Harvard education helped.

BILL: All those things helped. I always knew I would succeed but nobody could have possibly predicted success at this level. My work ethic was always strong, ever since I started in Scranton, PA, in 1976. I just said to myself, “Look, I’m going to work as hard as I can and I’m going to have fun.”

But it takes a lot of luck to get where I am. I’d give it about a million to one given my personality and the fact that I never kissed anybody’s butt. But still, if I wasn’t having fun then I’d always go get another job.

If you add up the reruns of the show every night — our eight o’clock show appears on the West Coast and at 11 here, and adding that, we have more than five million viewers a night. So in a cable universe, we’ve accomplished a lot. And you know what I’m proudest of? BillOReilly.com — and all the money from the website goes to charity. This year we’ll donate close to a million, helping Habitat for Humanity, children’s charities, help for the homeless. This goes directly to the community. Every penny!