Geraldo Rivera Makes Final Fox News Appearance After Being Fired From The Five: ‘I Want to Leave Thinking About How Wonderful Everyone Has Been’

And that’s a wrap on Geraldo Rivera.

Fox News bid adieu to Rivera and his iconic mustache (see set photo below) during Friday’s edition of Fox & Friends, offering the veteran broadcaster an opportunity to reflect on his 22-year stint on the conservative cable news channel.

“I feel so verklempt already,” Rivera said at the top of the segment. “I am leaving Fox, my dear friends. I was fired from The Five, so then I said, ‘I might as well resign totally,’ and I quit. And today is my last day. But I want to leave not thinking about those things; I want to leave thinking about how wonderful everyone has been to me…. We have shared so many experiences.

“It started with 9/11,” the former war correspondent pointed out. “The reason I came here was because I had a great show… on CNBC, but they wouldn’t let me go to war. [Former Fox News chairman and CEO] Roger Ailes, who was our boss at the time, had earlier been my boss at CNBC, and he said, ‘OK, I’ll let you be a war correspondent if you work for half pay…’ and it took me around the world. Life takes you strange places, but it established a relationship with Fox that people would not ordinarily think of as a natural relationship because of political ideologies and so forth — me being more on the progressive side than many of my colleagues — but it worked out. Everybody was open-minded, open-hearted… I was treated as a family member here, and I hope it was reciprocated. There are ways to work as colleagues, and then there are ways to work as family, and I really do think that we became family.”

The segment ended with a montage chronicling Rivera’s 50+ years in broadcasting — including clips from his eponymous daytime talk show (featuring former president Donald Trump), the infamous opening of Al Capone’s vault and his reality-TV stints on Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing With the Stars — and a series of pre-taped goodbyes from members of the Fox News family.

Will you miss Rivera on Fox News? Hit the comments with your reactions to Friday’s farewell.