Minnesota Public Radio confirms it has fired Garrison Keillor after receiving a single “inappropriate behavior” allegation.
Keillor, 75, retired in 2016 from hosting duties on “A Prairie Home Companion” after 40 years with the program, but still produced “The Writer’s Almanac” for syndication.
He told The Associated Press about the firing Wednesday before MPR posted a statement to its website confirming his dismissal.
“Last month, MPR was notified of the allegations which relate to Mr. Keillor’s conduct while he was responsible for the production of A Prairie Home Companion,” the statement read. MPR announced that it has severed all business ties with Keillor and canceled contracts with his media companies, including ending rebroadcasts of “The Best of A Prairie Home Companion” and “The Writer’s Almanac.”
The release said MPR also would change the name of future broadcasts of “A Prairie Home Companion,” now hosted by Chris Thile.
“I put my hand on a woman’s bare back,” Keillor wrote Wednesday in an email to The Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I meant to pat her back after she told me about her unhappiness and her shirt was open and my hand went up it about six inches. She recoiled. I apologized. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it. We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”
He joked that being fired was “a real distinction” in a broadcasting career, but wished that he’d been dismissed for something more “heroic.”
“Anyone who ever was around my show can tell you that I was the least physically affectionate person in the building,” Keillor added in the email. “Actors hug, musicians hug, people were embracing every Saturday night left and right, and I stood off in the corner like a stone statue. If I had a dollar for every woman who asked to take a selfie with me and who slipped an arm around me and let it drift down below the beltline, I’d have at least a hundred dollars. So this is poetic irony of a high order. But I’m just fine. I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.”
The broadcaster also sent a follow-up statement to The Associated Press.
“It’s some sort of poetic irony to be knocked off the air by a story, having told so many of them myself, but I’m 75 and don’t have any interest in arguing about this. And I cannot in conscience bring danger to a great organization I’ve worked hard for since 1969,” Keillor wrote.
Keillor is currently still scheduled to perform Thursday at the Warner Theatre in Torrington, Conn., and Saturday at the State Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y.
On Tuesday, Keillor penned an opinion column for The Washington Post defending Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who faces some calls to resign after accusation of inappropriate conduct, including an alleged incident during a 2006 USO tour before his election.
“Eleven years later, a talk show host in LA, she goes public, and there is talk of resignation, “ Keillor wrote. “This is pure absurdity, and the atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness. No kidding.”
Christopher Ingraham, a Washington Post reporter, noted on Twitter that Keillor almost certainly wrote the opinion column knowing that he was under investigation or was about to be fired.
After word of Keillor’s firing spread, a 1994 video of a National Press Club speech surfaced in which he said, “A world in which there is no sexual harassment at all is a world in which there will not be any flirtation.”
Keillor’s firing comes after a series of shake ups at NPR, including the resignation of NPR’s news chief Mike Oreskes in early November amid allegations of sexual harassment and the ouster of NPR Chief News Editor David Sweeney on Tuesday amid sexual harassment allegations.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published November 29, 2017 12:47 PM.