Chris Cuomo Accused of Sexual Misconduct Amidst CNN Firing

By Michael Hein

CNN reportedly learned of sexual misconduct allegations against anchor Chris Cuomo shortly before firing him this week. Cuomo was dropped from the news network for his role in aiding his brother, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's efforts to mitigate the fallout from his own sexual misconduct allegations. However, The New York Times reported that allegations against Cuomo himself were out by then as well.

The timeline around Cuomo's firing has gotten muddled in some reports this weekend. It started on Monday when new evidence was published in the case against his brother, showing that Cuomo had taken a very active role in the public relations crisis. CNN suspended Cuomo indefinitely on Tuesday, saying that these revelations were under review. On Wednesday, CNN reportedly got word from a prominent workplace attorney saying that she represented a client with a misconduct allegation against Chris Cuomo himself.

CNN fired Cuomo permanently on Friday, and at the time the network acknowledged both the PR scandal and the personal allegation. Its public statement read: "Based on the report we received regarding Chris's conduct with his brother's defense, we had cause to terminate. When new allegations came to us this week, we took them seriously, and saw no reason to delay taking immediate action."

This left some room for interpretation as to what was the real cause for Cuomo's termination, or if both offenses were weighted equally. Cuomo was reportedly a part of of his brother's "tight-knit group of advisers" helping him to try to contain the sexual misconduct allegations against him. This included using Cuomo's vast media contacts in influence – including keeping tabs of which reporters were working on stories about the allegations and for which outlets.

Cuomo reportedly even followed up on a lead personally, believing it could prove that one of his brother's accusers was lying. This turned out not to be the case. Cuomo took other steps to "discredit" some of the accusers, insiders said.

Cuomo responded to his termination with a public statement late on Saturday night. It read: "This is not how I want my time at CNN to end but I have already told you why and how I helped my brother. So let me now say as disappointing as this is, I could not be more proud of the team at Cuomo Prime Time and the work we did as CNN's #1 show in the most competitive time slot. I owe them all and will miss that group of special people who did really important work."

0comments
Start the Conversation

of