On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that radio personality Garrison Keillor informed them that he had been fired from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) following allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior that were brought against him.
Shortly afterward, MPR released a statement confirming that they were in fact terminating Keillor’s contracts after being notified of sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred while he was producing his popular weekly variety show, A Prairie Home Companion. Keillor hosted the show from its inception in 1974 through July 2016; MPR learned of the allegations last month and has been conducting an investigation since.
As of Wednesday, MPR will cease broadcasting Keillor’s current show, The Writer’s Almanac, and will no longer rebroadcast episodes of The Best of a Prairie Home Companion. They’re also changing the name of the show —which is now hosted by Chris Thile — entirely.
In a statement to the AP, Keillor said his firing stemmed from “a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.” The day prior to his firing, he wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post saying calls for Senator Al Franken to resign due to sexual harassment allegations were “absurd.”
The Cut will update this post as more information becomes available.
Update, 2:15 p.m.: Keillor elaborated on his version of the situation to the Star Tribune. “I put my hand on a woman’s bare back. 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,” he told the paper.
“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,” Keillor continued. ” But I’m just fine. I had a good long run and am grateful for it and for everything else.”