Maureen McPhilmy was born on May 11, 1966 in Chittenango, New York, USA as Maureen Elizabeth McPhilmy. Her parents are of white ethnicity and American nationality; her mother was a gardener and her father worked in a local market. When she was five, McPhilmy’s parents were divorced. McPhilmy was enrolled and graduated from St. Peter’s School. It has been reported that McPhilmy was just a regular girl having regular aspirations and dreams. After graduating high school, McPhilmy enrolled at St. Johns College. McPhilmy always wanted to be an actress and she did some modeling work as well, but she was unable to find success with either of these career aspirations. In 1992, McPhilmy began dating Bill O'Reilly, one the most famous television journalists in the United States. Maureen McPhilmy met Bill O’Reilly in1992 when they were both working on the show ‘A Current Affair’; Bill was a host of the show and Maureen was working as public relations executive. The couple became fast friends and eventually their relationship turned romantic. The couple was married on November 2, 1996 at St. Brigid Paris in Westbury, United Kingdom.
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Professionally, Bill O’Reilly is a television writer and political observer. Known as a moderate pundit, Bill is considered dynamic and an expert in his field. It is said that he instantly caught the eye of Maureen and she approached him. Certain things to know about him are as follows: he attended Queen Mary college of London and obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the Marist College; he began his vocation working at WNEP Television in Scranton, Pennsylvania; he later moved to WFAA-TV inside the city of Dallas.
The couple is the father and mother of two children, a daughter, Madeline, who was conceived in 1998, and a son, Spencer, born in 2003. After spending over a decade together, Maureen McPhilmy and Bill O’Reilly separated from each other in 2010. The main reason for their divorce, according to Maureen, was Bill’s abusive nature.
The couple was separated in 2011 when McPhilmy accused Bill O’Reilly, who was in the middle of several sexual harassment lawsuits, of attacking her. McPhilmy swore in an affidavit, which was signed and notarized on October 10, 2011, that she discovered O’Reilly engaging in phone sex in their bedroom at roughly 10:30 p.m. one evening. She stated that O’Reilly then “flew into a fit of rage” and slammed her into a nearby wall, leaving a hole one foot across. O’Reilly then, according to the affidavit, dragged McPhilmy by the neck down a flight of stairs and through the kitchen. McPhilmy says that she screamed that he was hurting her and that a security guard assigned to protect O’Reilly and his family saw what was going on, at which point O’Reilly stopped the attack. McPhilmy stated that the guard appeared to be startled by O’Reilly’s appearance as he “was naked from the waist down.” At least two former Fox News employees have alleged that O’Reilly harassed them with unwanted phone calls during which he seemed to be masturbating. In 2015, a court also heard that O’Reilly and McPhilmy’s daughter Madeline had witnessed her father drag her mother by the neck down a staircase.
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O’Reilly’s divorce and custody battle with McPhilmy has been lengthy and bitter, and O’Reilly has gone to extraordinary lengths to discredit, frustrate, and outmaneuver McPhilmy. In May of 2015, O’Reilly released a statement saying that “All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false. I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further.” However, the three year custody battle ended in April of 2015 with Maureen McPhilmy being awarded custody of their children by the Nassau County Supreme Court. As part of their custody agreement, the couple agreed to a child therapist who would arbitrate any potential custodial disputes.
But McPhilmy charged in court papers that O’Reilly “hired the children’s therapist as a full-time employee to perform virtually all of his parental duties.” In March 2013, O’Reilly was accused of trying to ban his ex-wife from the Catholic Church. O’Reilly allegedly told the church that McPhilmy was receiving communion even though she’d been divorced and remarried and that she’d been telling their children that her second marriage was valid in the eyes of God.
After her separation from O’Reilly, Maureen began a new chapter in her life. She met and married Jeffrey Gross, a police detective. Jeffrey Gross is a widower and has two teenage children from his previous marriage with Kathleen McBride, who died due to cervical cancer in 2006. It has been alleged that O’Reilly contacted high-placed connections within the New York Police Department to trigger an internal affairs investigation into the detective and his relationship with McPhilmy.
The former Fox News host also filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against his ex-wife in 2016, claiming she tricked him into signing their "unreasonable" 2011 divorce settlement under false pretenses. The suit claimed that O’Reilly had been led to “finance an existing extra-marital relationship,” but the specifics were unclear, because O’Reilly convinced the justice overseeing the lawsuit to take the unusual step of sealing the docket. Two months later the amount of the suit rose to $14,476,886, more than $4 million more than his suit originally sought, after the court held an “inquest” hearing to determine the actual damages. Legal experts who viewed the complaint said more information was needed to assess its validity. “To read that complaint, you really need to have that separation agreement, and that divorce agreement, in front of you, to understand it,” said Christopher T. McGrath, a practicing attorney and former president of the Nassau County Bar Association. The 67-year-old journalist was fired by Fox News early in 2018 amid growing accusations of sexual harassment.
Maureen and Gross now reside in upscale Manhasset, on New York’s Long Island in their $4million home. McPhilmy tries to keep her present life away from the eyes of media as well as from her ex-husband. She is active on Instagram where she posts photos of her family. Her biography can be read on Wikipedia as well as on other websites on the internet. Her net worth is not known.
Last Modified: Mar 12, 2020
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