Who Is Maureen McPhilmy Married to Now? – The Full Story of Bill O’Reilly’s Ex-Wife, Her New Life With Jeffrey Gross, and Her Long Road to Peace

There is a particular kind of public visibility that nobody chooses: the kind that arrives because you were married to a famous and controversial man. Maureen McPhilmy did not seek the spotlight. She was a professional public relations executive, a private person by temperament and by trade, who married a television host in 1996 and found herself, over the following two decades, gradually drawn into a very public drama involving alleged domestic abuse, a bitter custody battle, a high-profile divorce, and eventually a lawsuit filed against her by the same man she had tried to leave quietly.

She navigated all of it. And today, she lives in a $4 million home in Manhasset, New York, with her current husband — Nassau County detective Jeffrey Gross — and a blended family of four children. The story of how she got there is worth telling carefully, because it says something important about resilience, privacy, and what it actually looks like to rebuild a life under relentless public scrutiny.

Who Is Maureen McPhilmy Married to Now?

 

Early Life and Background – Chittenango, New York

Maureen McPhilmy was born and raised in Chittenango, New York, United States of America. Her mother was a gardener, and her father worked in a local market. Her parents divorced when she was five.

Chittenango is a small village in Madison County, central New York — perhaps best known as the birthplace of L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wizard of Oz. It is a quiet, working-class community, far removed from the television studios and Manhattan courtrooms that would later define the public chapters of Maureen’s life.

Growing up with divorced parents in modest circumstances taught her, early, the kind of resilience that would prove essential later. Her early life in a simple family, with a mother who worked as a gardener and a father at a local market, taught her to be strong and to work hard.

She attended St. Peter’s School for her early education. After finishing school, Maureen started working to support herself. Her first job was as a waitress at a restaurant, which she worked at while planning her future career.

The transition from waitressing to public relations executive is not a short journey. It reflects someone who understood that her circumstances at birth were not her destiny — a lesson reinforced by a difficult childhood and a determination to define herself through work.

Career in Public Relations

Maureen McPhilmy built her professional life in the field of public relations, working as an executive responsible for helping clients manage their public image and communicate effectively with the media. Her role involved creating clear messages, guiding public perception, and handling sensitive situations with care, all while maintaining strict discretion.

In 1992, Maureen McPhilmy began her career in public relations. She worked hard and became successful in this field. She was known for being professional and keeping her clients’ information private. Her job helped her earn good money and respect in the industry.

There is an irony — though not an unusual one — in the fact that a woman whose professional expertise is managing other people’s public images found herself unable to control her own when her marriage became tabloid fodder. She handled it the only way a genuinely private person can: by saying as little as possible and focusing on what mattered.

Even though her past relationships were highly publicized, Maureen has consistently chosen to keep a low profile. Her social media and public appearances are mostly nonexistent, as she prefers to focus on her personal and professional life out of the glare of the media spotlight.

Meeting Bill O’Reilly — A Workplace Encounter That Changed Everything

Maureen met Bill O’Reilly in 1992 while working on the show A Current Affair. Bill hosted the show, and Maureen worked as a public relations executive.

A Current Affair was a syndicated tabloid television programme — enormously popular in the early 1990s — and it brought together a brash, opinionated host and a composed, professional PR executive. They became friends, then dated for four years.

On November 2, 1996, they got married at St. Brigid Parish in Westbury, New York. They share two children: a daughter, Madeline, born in 1998, and a son, Spencer, born in 2003.

For the first decade of their marriage, Bill O’Reilly was ascending to the height of his cultural influence — The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News became the highest-rated cable news programme in America, making him one of the most recognisable and polarising figures in broadcasting. Maureen was, by all accounts, entirely absent from that public world by choice. She raised their children, continued her PR work quietly, and stayed well clear of the camera that defined her husband’s life.

The Divorce — Abuse Allegations, Custody Battle, and Years of Legal War

What ended the marriage is disputed — Bill O’Reilly has categorically denied the accounts given by Maureen and, later, their daughter. But the documented record of the court proceedings tells a specific story.

In April 2010, Maureen and Bill O’Reilly separated after 14 years of marriage. Their divorce was finalised on September 1, 2011. During the divorce, Maureen made serious claims. She said that Bill was physically abusive during their marriage. In court documents, she claimed that Bill once grabbed her by the neck and dragged her down the stairs. Their daughter Madeline reportedly saw this happen.

During the court hearings, Maureen claimed that Bill had been emotionally and physically abusive during their marriage. She even stated that their daughter reported seeing Bill drag Maureen down the stairs by her neck.

Bill O’Reilly strongly denied all these claims, calling them “100 percent false.” His official statement read: “All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false. I am going to respect the court-mandated confidentiality put in place to protect my children and will not comment any further.”

The custody battle that followed the divorce lasted years and was, by all accounts, ferocious.

In February 2016, the custody battle was finalised in favour of McPhilmy, with the court declaring that their two children would live full time with her.

The legal conflict did not end there. O’Reilly filed a $10 million lawsuit against McPhilmy, accusing her of misleading him during their divorce agreement.

O’Reilly even went so far as to use his powers in the Catholic Church to attempt to ban his wife of 15 years from receiving Communion. That particular allegation — that a media figure used religious institutional connections to pursue a personal vendetta against his ex-wife — generated considerable coverage and significant criticism of O’Reilly at the time.

Throughout all of this, Maureen McPhilmy said almost nothing publicly. She fought through the courts, protected her children, and maintained the kind of dignified silence that people in her professional field know is almost always more powerful than speaking.

Who Is Maureen McPhilmy Married to Now? — Jeffrey Gross

This is the question most people are searching for, and the answer is both confirmed and quietly remarkable.

Maureen McPhilmy is currently married to Jeffrey Gross, a Nassau County, New York detective.

Jeffrey is a widower with two teenage children from his marriage with Kathleen McBride, who passed away from cervical cancer in 2006.

Jeffrey Gross is, by every account, the polar opposite of her first marriage in terms of public profile. He is a Nassau County police detective — a man whose career is built on investigation, evidence, and service rather than television cameras and political commentary. He lost his first wife to cervical cancer and was raising two children as a single parent when he met Maureen.

After her split from O’Reilly in 2010, McPhilmy began dating Gross, a Nassau County police detective. The pair has since married.

The relationship was not without controversy at the time. O’Reilly had previously helped raise money for his local police department. Having heard about McPhilmy’s relationship with Gross, O’Reilly allegedly had an internal affairs investigation launched into Gross. The attempt to weaponise professional systems against a man his ex-wife was dating drew widespread condemnation and added another layer to the already extraordinarily complicated post-divorce landscape.

Maureen McPhilmy and Jeffrey Gross currently reside in a $4 million home in Manhasset, New York. Together they have built a blended family of four children — Maureen’s two children with O’Reilly and Jeffrey’s two children from his first marriage.

A Blended Family and a Private Life

Today, Maureen McPhilmy lives in Manhasset, New York, with her husband Jeffrey Gross and their blended family, which includes her two children and his two children from a previous marriage. She continues to work in public relations, using the skills and experience she has built over the years, but she keeps her professional life low-profile and separate from public attention.

Manhasset is an affluent community on Long Island’s North Shore — a quiet, tree-lined enclave of exactly the kind of stable suburban life that Maureen spent years fighting to secure for her children. The irony that it is also where she and Bill O’Reilly once lived together — and where their daughter reportedly witnessed the incident on the stairs — is not lost in the telling. She stayed, built something better in the same place, and refused to be driven out.

Maureen focuses on family life, privacy, and creating a stable and happy home, choosing to live away from the media spotlight while enjoying a more peaceful and fulfilling chapter of her life.

Net Worth

Maureen McPhilmy’s net worth is estimated to be around $4 million. This comes from her career in public relations and her divorce settlement.

This figure reflects the combined value of a professional career spanning over three decades in public relations and the financial outcome of her legal proceedings with O’Reilly. She does not maintain a public profile that would generate additional income streams through media appearances or endorsements — consistent with her preference for privacy.

Tribe, Religion, and Ethnicity

Maureen McPhilmy is an American national of white ethnicity, born and raised in upstate New York. She is Catholic by religion, as reflected in her first wedding at St. Brigid Parish and O’Reilly’s later attempt to have her removed from Catholic Church membership — an act that underscored the depth of the personal conflict between them in the years following their divorce.

Conclusion

Maureen McPhilmy’s story is, at its core, about the difference between the life that happens to you and the life you build in response. She did not choose to be publicly defined by her marriage to a controversial television figure. She did not choose the allegations, the custody battle, the lawsuits, or the religious intimidation. What she did choose — consistently, deliberately, and with remarkable composure — was how to respond to all of it. She fought in court rather than in the press. She protected her children rather than weaponising them. She remarried a man whose life is built on quiet service rather than public spectacle. And she lives today, in the same town where so much of the damage was done, in a home she shares with a husband, a blended family, and a privacy she has entirely earned.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Who is Maureen McPhilmy married to now? Maureen McPhilmy is currently married to Jeffrey Gross, a Nassau County, New York detective. They reside together in Manhasset, New York.

2. How old is Maureen McPhilmy? Maureen McPhilmy was born on May 11, 1966. She is 59 years old as of 2025.

3. Where is Maureen McPhilmy from? She was born and raised in Chittenango, New York, United States of America.

4. How many children does Maureen McPhilmy have? Maureen and Bill O’Reilly share two children: a daughter, Madeline, born in 1998, and a son, Spencer, born in 2003. She also has two stepchildren from Jeffrey Gross’s first marriage.

5. What is Maureen McPhilmy’s net worth? Maureen McPhilmy’s net worth is estimated to be around $4 million, from her career in public relations and her divorce settlement.

6. Who is Jeffrey Gross, Maureen McPhilmy’s husband? Jeffrey Gross is a Nassau County, New York detective. He is a widower with two children from his previous marriage to Kathleen McBride, who passed away from cervical cancer in 2006.

7. Who was Maureen McPhilmy previously married to? Maureen McPhilmy was previously married to Bill O’Reilly. They married on November 2, 1996, and their divorce was finalised on September 1, 2011