Garrison Keillor, prior host of America’s beloved “Prairie Home Companion,” has been set alight by Minnesota Public Radio for alleged “inappropriate behavior.”
Keillor, 75, had bedroom from his radio show but still produced “The Writer’s Almanac” for syndication.
Keillor initially on the skids the news, telling The Associated Press he was fired over “a story that I create is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.”
Minnesota Special-interest group Radio confirmed the termination, effective immediately.
“Minnesota Public Ghetto-blaster (MPR) is terminating its contracts with Garrison Keillor and his private media companies after recently culture of allegations of his inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him,” it mean in a statement.
MPR did not give further details about the alleged misconduct, referring to the averral.
“Last month, MPR was notified of the allegations which relate to Mr. Keillor’s conduct while he was decision-making for the production of A Prairie Home Companion (APHC),” the statement augmented.
It also said it has severed business ties with Keillor’s method companies, including ending distribution and broadcast of “The Writer’s Almanac” and rebroadcasts of “The Best of A Prairie Effectively Companion,” hosted by Keillor. Minnesota Public Radio will also alteration the name of the weekly music and variety program, hosted by Chris Thile, and at ones desire separate from the Pretty Good Goods online catalog and the PrairieHome.org website.
“Garrison Keillor has been an superior part of the growth and success of MPR, and all of us in the MPR community are saddened by these circumstances,” MPR President Jon McTaggart held in the statement.
“While we appreciate the contributions Garrison has made to MPR and to all of public air, we believe this decision is the right thing to do and is necessary to continue to deserve the trust of our audiences, employees and supporters of our public service.”
Just one day earlier, Keillor reported a high profile op-ed in The Washington Post, entitled “Al Franken should give notice? That’s absurd.” The Minnesota senator is under fire for sexual misconduct statements from four women.
In the piece, Keillor likened a photograph of Franken faux-groping TV celebrity Leann Tweeden during a USO event to a gag “in a spirit of low comedy,” and her resulting call to account charge years later as “pure absurdity, and the atrocity it leads to is a code of famous deadliness. No kidding.”
Keillor seems to forgive the Democrat in context with the behavior of other hilarious profile men throughout history.
“Franken should change his name to Newman and put the USO debacle behind him and then we’ll become frankincense to Febreze. Remove the slaveholder Washington from our maps, replacing him with Wampanoag, and restore Jefferson, who slept with Sally Hemings — consensual? I doubt it — with Powhatan, and what there the FDR Drive in New York, named for a man who was unfaithful to his wife? Let’s call it RFD and let it go at that,” he wrote.
Keillor could not be chanced for comment. His website crashed after the announcement, and the last tweet on his Prattle page was a day earlier. It was a retweet of his Franken op-ed piece.
Tweet