Geraldo Rivera announced he was quitting Fox News on Thursday -- from a boat, for some reason. With his departure from Fox, that might be it for Rivera's more than 50-year career on television. The man has had some notable moments, that's for sure. What follows is a look at a few of his best, and worst moments in broadcasting.
Al Capone's vault
In 1985, Rivera had been fired by ABC for criticizing the network after it canceled a report about the relationship between Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. In 1986, he mounted his comeback with a syndicated special. He was set to host a much-hyped program about the discovery of a lost vault belonging to Al Capone. The vault was found in a walled-off underground room in Chicago's Lexington Hotel, which Capone had owned. More than 30 million people tuned in to the live special.
The special hyped the things that could be hidden in the vault, including wealth or even dead bodies. In the end, all that was found was dirt and a few empty bottles. It was, quite possibly, the biggest flop in TV history.
Willowbrook State School report
Back before he was a trash TV talk show host and an opinion guy, Geraldo was actually a respected investigative journalist. Back in 1972 while working for WABC-TV in New York, Rivera won a Peabody Award and national plaudits for exposing the awful conditions and abuse of patients at Staten Island's Willowbrook State School, as well as Rockland County's Letchworth Village. The reported gained him a ton of attention and he began appearing on national programs later in the decade.
After the report aired, John Lennon and Rivera put on a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden, called "One to One."
Suffering a broken nose fighting with racists
Getting kicked out of Iraq by the military during 2003 invasion
During the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in March of 2003, Rivera was working for Fox News and earned a plum assignment as a reporter embedded with the Army's 101st Airborne Division. As you would expect, the No. 1 rule for embedded reporters is to never reveal troop locations, movements, strategy or future plans. Rivera violated all of those rules during one report. As a result, the Army escorted him out of the country.
In the broadcast, Rivera drew a map in the sand showing the country of Iraq, then depicted where Baghdad was and where the 101st Airborne was in relation to that. He continued by showing what the unit planned to do next. Video of the incident has been scrubbed from the Internet for obvious reasons, but Stephen Colbert and The Daily Show had a lot of fun with it.
"Obama Is Dead"
Calling Casey Anthony a "slut" on-air
During Fox News' coverage of the Casey Anthony trial back in 2011, Rivera let looks with some language that made most of America squirm. While taking Anthony to task and wondering who the father of her deceased daughter Caylee was, Rivera referred to the defendant as a "selfish, narcissistic, self-involved slut." He also used the same term for her in an op-ed on FoxNews.com.
Anthony was found not guilty of first-degree murder.
This article was originally published on thebiglead as The Best And Worst Moments of Geraldo Rivera's Career.
