Jesse Watters

In 2009, on assignment for The O'Reilly Factor, Watters and his cameraman accosted journalist Amanda Terkel while she was on vacation to ask her questions about an article she wrote that was critical of Bill O'Reilly.

Seven years later, at a journalists' reception, The Huffington Post's Ryan Grim approached Watters with his phone camera running, and asked him to walk over to Terkel and apologize. Watters at first said he would apologize and then said he wouldn't. Then, he said: "I ambushed her because O'Reilly told me to get her because she said some bad shit."

Video of the incident shows Watters then grabbing Grim's phone and throwing it on the floor, and later grabbing it again and putting it in his pocket. Eventually, the two got into a shoving match as Grim attempted to recover his phone. Watters later said on The O'Reilly Factor: "I was at this party trying to enjoy myself. This guy came up to me. He starts putting it in my face."

Terkel wrote that Watters' response was "surprising," considering that "Watters' way of confronting his subjects is to thrust cameras in their faces unexpectedly and pepper them with aggressive questions."[19][20]

In October 2016, Watters was criticized for a segment of Watters' World that was widely considered racist toward Asian Americans.[21][22][23] In New York City's Chinatown, Watters asked Chinese Americans if they knew karate, if he should bow before he greets them, or if their watches were stolen.[22][24] Throughout the segment, the 1974 song "Kung Fu Fighting" plays in the background, and the interviews are interspersed with references to martial arts and clips of Watters getting a foot massage and playing with nunchucks.[23][24] New York City mayor Bill de Blasio denounced Watters' segment as "vile, racist behavior" that "has no place in our city".[25][26] Numerous other lawmakers and journalists, including Asian Americans Mazie Hirono and Judy Chu, also condemned Watters.[27] The segment was also criticized by the Asian American Journalists Association, which issued a statement saying: "We should be far beyond tired, racist stereotypes and targeting an ethnic group for humiliation and objectification on the basis of their race."[28]

On October 5, Watters tweeted what Variety's Will Thorne called a "non-apology" about the segment. In the two tweets, Watters stated: "My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found offense. ... As a political humorist, the Chinatown segment was intended to be a light piece, as all Watters' World segments are."[29][30][31]

In April 2017, two days after joining The Five as co-host, Watters made an on-air comment about Ivanka Trump that was criticized as lewd. After viewing footage of Trump speaking on a panel about female entrepreneurship, Watters commented, "So I don't really get what's going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone," as he parodied holding the microphone as a phallic symbol. Watters denied his comment was sexual, saying in a statement, "During the break we were commenting on Ivanka's voice and how it was low and steady and resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ... This was in no way a joke about anything else."[32] In response to the criticism, Watters was not on the show for two days that week.[33][34]