'Not Consistent With the Catholic School’s Values': Geraldo's Semi-Nude Selfie Causes Trouble

He may have deleted it from his Twitter feed, but the infamous semi-nude selfie taken and made public by Geraldo Rivera has come back to haunt him. The Fox News anchor and longtime tabloid TV poster child has been uninvited from a speaking gig he was scheduled for at Duquesne University, a Catholic school in Pittsburgh.

Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera was uninvited from speaking on a panel at Duquesne University for his semi-nude selfie. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Rivera had been invited by the school's Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law to speak at a forum on the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Rivera was the first to air the well-known Zapruder film, a home movie which documented the assassination.

"The administration felt that Mr. Rivera's decision to post a nearly naked picture of himself on social media was inappropriate and inconsistent with who we are as a Catholic university and therefore asked the Wecht Institute to withdraw the invitation," Bridget Fare, assistant vice president for public affairs at the university, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "We warn our students not to put anything inappropriate on social media because of potential consequences -- you could consider this teaching by example."

Rivera told TheBlaze by email that he was not being paid to speak at the university and that he was invited by Dr. Cyril Wecht, a well-known critic of the investigation of Kennedy's assassination.

"Are all prospective speakers similarly scrutinized or is my sin receiving special attention?" Rivera said. "Does the 'selfie' over-weigh my Peabody, Emmys, RFK's, and other professional achievements on Duquesne's scale of morality? Are the students of Duquesne so sensitive and protected that they will be unable to concentrate on the topic being discussed because they can not un-see the image?"

Rivera added that the way in which he was notified that his appearance at the university had been canceled was "incredibly rude." From Rivera's email:

I was informed last week by a stranger who introduced himself to me at a hotel bar, only to then tell me that he was on the JFK panel, but that it was too bad my appearance had been cancelled because of the offending tweet.

With the Pirates in contention for the World Series for the first time in a generation, this act by another Pittsburgh institution was incredibly Bush League.

Rivera sent out a tweet about the matter Friday. "Just heard Duquesne Univ cancelled my appearance at JFK assassination panel because of 'selfie,'" the tweet said. "Fact I first aired Zapruder film less [important]."

(H/T: Politico)

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