Caroline Heldman

Caroline Heldman is an Associate Professor of Politics at Occidental College in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, and was a political commentator for the The O'Reilly Factor from 2008 to 2011. In April 2017, Heldman accused Bill O'Reilly of sexist humiliation and bullying that was "typical for him", Heldman claims O’Reilly “blacklisted” her from his show after she pushed back against his alleged sexism during a taping, Heldman later filed a sexual harassment complaint against O'Reilly hours before Fox News announced his departure from the network.Heldman was one of three O'Reilly accusers being represented by attorney Lisa Bloom. In August 2017, hours after Fox News personality Eric Bolling was suspended, Heldman posted on Facebook Bolling had made sexually charged references to her, referring to her as 'Dr. McHottie' on air on four separate occasions, called her ‘smart, beautiful, and wrong’ on the air twice,” Heldman stated she pushed back against Bolling calling him ‘Mr. McSexist,’ Heldman alleges in her Facebook post, "That type of on-air behavior was perfectly acceptable to Fox executives at the time." Heldman claimed in her post Bolling wanted to fly her to New York to have 'fun,' and have meals with him but Heldman found excuses not to go, Heldman alleges Bolling took her to his office in New York and showed her his baseball jerseys and said his office was his "favorite place to have sex," Heldman also posted, "My only surprise is that it took this long for people to come forward about Bolling’s behavior, which has been wildly inappropriate for years." The same month Mother Jones reported that former Fox News consultant Woody Fraser had sexually harassed Heldman repeatedly for more than a year, with the possibility of a paid job at Fox News if Heldman would have sex with him, based upon a "declaration of penalty of perjury" document Heldman had signed in a potential lawsuit against Fraser, Mother Jones also reported Heldman claimed to have also been sexually harassed by Kiss singer Gene Simmons, and former Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra. Heldman has been an activist for the abolishment of the statute of limitations for sexual assaults and policy reform on college campuses in fighting sexual assault. In 2012, she teamed up with her colleague Danielle Dirks to form the anti-sexual assault activist group Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition. Heldman is also a principle researcher for the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media.