Fox News contributor Geraldo Rivera traveled to Paris on Monday, Nov. 16, where he reunited with his daughter Simone who was at a soccer game when terrorists detonated several bombs outside of the stadium.
Fox & Friends aired footage of the emotional reunion between dad and daughter on Monday. In it, Rivera is seen running up to his daughter and gripping her with relief. The Fox correspondent gives his child, 21, numerous kisses and appears to be overcome with emotion.
“Geraldo, what was it like when you were able to hug your own Simone with your two arms?” Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy asked Rivera on Monday via satellite.
“It was an amazing relief just to squeeze her and to know that she was safe,” the dad replied. “Of course we had exchanged text messages after a frustrating failure to communicate during the awful incident on Friday night. All I can say is that the Rivera family is tremendously relieved, but wemourn so much for the other families that have suffered so much here . . . This was a really severe, horrible blow to the soul of the French people.”
During an emotional appearance on Fox News on Friday night, Rivera recounted Simone’s experience when she was at one of the several sites attacked by terrorists. “My daughter, Simone, told me she heard the three explosions near halftime,” Rivera told Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. “It was chaos.”
In addition to the explosions at the soccer game, a mass shooting occurred within the Bataclan arts center where the Eagles of Death Metal were performing. Another attack occurred at a local restaurant, the concert hall suffered the largest number of casualties. One-hundred-twenty-nine people have been killed in the attacks. “I just thank god she was at the stadium and not at the rock concert,” Rivera noted on Friday.
Officials said on Monday that the key perpetrator of the attacks has been identified. An anonymous French official told The New York Times that a 27-year-old Belgian named Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a member of ISIS, was the primary suspect.
