Garrison Keillor Firing: Chris Thile, Former Colleagues React

Minnesota Public Radio fired former radio host Garrison Keillor on Wednesday after an allegation of "inappropriate behavior" was lodged against him by someone he worked with, the station announced. Keillor hosted "A Prairie Home Companion" since the variety show began in 1974 until he retired in 2016, when bluegrass musician Chris Thile took over.

The station did not elaborate on the nature of the complaint against Keillor, but noted in their statement that "discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or other inappropriate behaviors will not be tolerated."

Keillor told The Associated Press he was fired for "a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard."

"It's some sort of poetic irony to be knocked off the air by a story, having told so many of them myself, but I'm 75 and don't have any interest in arguing about this. And I cannot in conscience bring danger to a great organization I've worked hard for since 1969," Keillor told AP.

Keillor's firing took place just two days after Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, held a news conference to address multiple sexual harassment allegations against him. Keillor wrote a syndicated column published in The Washington Post Tuesday night that argued Franken should not resign over sexual misconduct allegations against him.

In the piece, Keillor wrote:

"Franken should change his name to Newman and put the USO debacle behind him and then we'll change frankincense to Febreze. Remove the slaveholder Washington from our maps, replacing him with Wampanoag, and replace Jefferson, who slept with Sally Hemings — consensual? I doubt it — with Powhatan, and what about 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."

Various former colleagues and associates of Keillor reacted to the news of his firing Wednesday. "I’m in shock," Thile said on Twitter. "I know nothing beyond what’s contained in the statement below, but I trust that the proper steps are being taken."

"FYI - The patriarchy is falling," said MPR trustee Nancy Lyons.

"And yet another one," tweeted MPR host Cathy Wurzer.

"As a journalist who happens to work at MPR, I would want to know if Keillor was informed he was under investigation prior to penning YESTERDAY's op-ed defending Sen. Franken," reporter Brian Bakst wrote.

Days like this have me just pic.twitter.com/SYLRhVRR4i
— melissa block (@NPRmelissablock) 29 November 2017

Ben Feuerherd, Patch National Staff, contributed this report.

Photo credit: AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt, File