Keillor, Minnesota Public Radio, via YouTube
According to the Associated Press, Garrison Keillor, former host of the popular radio show, A Prairie Home Companion, has been fired by Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of improper behavior.
Keillor:
“I was fired over a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.”
He gave no details of the allegations. Minnesota Public Radio has made no comment.
Keillor, who is 75-years-old, retired as host of his long-running Public Radio variety show last year. His hand-picked successor, musician Chris Thile, has been as A Prairie Home Companion host since then. Keillor still produces The Writer’s Almanac for syndication.
Keillor, an avowed Democrat, published an op-ed piece yesterday that ridiculed the notion that Senator Al Franken should resign over allegations of sexual harassment. In the piece for the Washington Post, Keillor said the picture was taken in 2006 during a USO tour that he did “from deep in his heart, out of patriotism”. He then dismissed the picture of Franken groping conservative radio host, Leeann Tweeden, as a harmless gag and “low comedy”.
In 1974, Keillor started his Saturday evening show featuring tales of his fictional Minnesota hometown of Lake Wobegon: “Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average”. A Prairie Home Companion featured musical acts, folksy humor, and in his beautiful baritone voice, Keillor delivering a seemingly improvised feature, The News From Lake Wobegon.
The show was adapted into a rather goood film directed by Robert Altman in 2006. It is his final film. The film is a fictional representation of behind-the-scenes activities at the Public Radio show. It features an ensemble cast including Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, and Keillor as himself.
Keillor broadcast his final show at Hollywood Bowl in July 2016, and then went on a 28-city bus tour last summer, vowing it would be his last. Keillor is working on a Lake Wobegon screenplay and a memoir.
