Radio host Garrison Keillor has been fired by Minnesota Public Radio amid accusations of improper behavior.
The former host of “A Prairie Home Companion” told the Associated Press in an email that he’d been axed, then later wrote in a statement that he was given the boot over “a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.”
MPR said it has hired an outside law firm to conduct an “independent investigation” into the allegations.
“Minnesota Public Radio is terminating its contracts with Garrison Keillor and his private media companies after recently learning of allegations of his inappropriate behavior with an individual who worked with him,” the statement read.
Keillor, who retired as host of “Praire Home” last year, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he’d put his hand on a woman’s back to comfort her.
“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. I sent her an email of apology later and she replied that she had forgiven me and not to think about it,” Keillor told the newspaper in an e-mail.
“We were friends. We continued to be friendly right up until her lawyer called.”
The firing came after the longtime radio host wrote in a syndicated column on Tuesday that a photo of Sen. Al Franken groping Leeann Tweeden was simply done “in a spirit of low comedy.”
“On the flight home, in a spirit of low comedy, Al ogled Miss Tweeden and pretended to grab her and a picture was taken,” he said.
With Post wires