Bill O'Reilly found comedy in the video of a United passenger being dragged off a plane

Bill O'Reilly.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

If you want to make Bill O'Reilly laugh, just show him a video of a man being forcibly dragged off of an airplane — it tickles his funny bone every time.

In what may have been a ploy to get United to air advertisements during his show, The O'Reilly Factor host chuckled after he showed a clip from the viral video shot Sunday night on a Louisville-bound flight, when a passenger refused to give up his seat on an overbooked plane and was violently removed by airport police. In the footage, the man is heard screaming and passengers are gasping, with one woman yelling "Oh my God! Look at what you did to him!" This elicited a giggle from O'Reilly, who told correspondent Rob Schmitt, "I shouldn't be laughing, but it's just so bizarre."

The hilarity continued, with O'Reilly chuckling as he said, "They had to get some United Airlines personnel from Chicago to Louisville … they had to get them there and so they asked for volunteers, and obviously, this guy didn't volunteer." O'Reilly did settle down later in the segment, declaring that we "can't have this kind of stuff, it looks like a police state." Last week, The New York Times reported that Fox News and O'Reilly settled with five women accusing the anchor of sexual harassment, and The O'Reilly Factor has been shedding sponsors ever since.

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.