Read Chris Cuomo’s response to an allegation of sexual harassment

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CNN host Chris Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment by a former boss while on ABC and calls on him to “journalistically repent” on the air.

This is the latest scandal swirling around ‘Cuomo Prime Time’ host, who has come under fire in recent months for advising his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to fight his own allegations of sexual harassment. The television host ended up avoiding retaliation from the cable news network for his involvement in the scandal.

For memory :

2:23 PM September 24, 2021 An earlier version of this story read “The Early Show” which airs on ABC. It aired on CBS.

In a guest column published in The New York Times on Friday, veteran TV reporter Shelley Ross wrote that Cuomo’s on-air statements about her deep concern about sexual harassment prompted her to share her story: she has alleged that Cuomo sexually harassed her at a New York City bar. in 2005 during a departure party for an ABC colleague.

“When Mr. Cuomo walked into the Upper West Side bar, he walked over to me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering a hand to firmly grasp and squeeze my cheek. buttock, “Ross wrote in the column, citing Cuomo as allegedly saying,” I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss. “

Ross said she replied “No you can’t” and pushed him out of her chest area as she stepped back. She said her husband, who was also at the party, saw the whole episode up close.

At the time, Ross was an executive producer for an entertainment special on ABC and just before that, he had been executive producer of “Primetime Live,” where Cuomo was one of the many presenters.

Ross said she and her husband quickly left the bar and Cuomo emailed her an apology an hour after the incident. She provided the newspaper with a photo of the correspondence dated June 1, 2005, with the subject line “Come to think of it … I’m ashamed”. In it, Cuomo apologized to her “very good and noble husband” and then to her for putting her in “such a position.”

Although Ross never thought Cuomo’s behavior was sexual in nature, she wrote, “Her form of sexual harassment was a hostile act intended to belittle and demean her former boss in front of the staff.”

In a statement provided to The Times by CNN, Cuomo, 51, said: “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not of a sexual nature. This happened 16 years ago in a public setting while she was a senior executive at ABC. I apologized to her at that point, and I really meant it.

But in his column, Ross asked if the lawyer turned TV personality was ashamed of what he did or just embarrassed because her husband saw it. She also questioned Cuomo’s on-air proclamations about caring “very deeply about these issues” involving sexual harassment and the search for the truth.

“Sir. Cuomo can say that this is a sincere apology. I have always seen this as an attempt to provide myself with legal and moral cover to escape liability,” she wrote.

Ross, who was ousted from CBS’s “The Early Show” in 2008 after her leadership was attacked in what she saw as a toxic work culture, said she was fighting sexual harassment in the workplace for 40 years.

She said she was not asking Cuomo “to become the next victim of this terrible continuing story” but to “journalistically repent” by agreeing to air “to study the impact of sexism, harassment and abuse. gender bias in the workplace, including your own, and then report it.

Cuomo, whose nightlife program has the largest following on CNN, has previously apologized on the air when his personal life grabbed the headlines. It’s unclear if Cuomo will address Ross’s New York Times editorial on his next live broadcast, which is slated for Monday.

Times editor Christie D’Zurilla contributed to this report.

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