CNN anchor Chris Cuomo has been accused of touching a TV news executive in an inappropriate manner. Shelley Ross, former TV news executive, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times that detailed the incident. It happened in 2005, at a going-away party for an ABC staffer. Ross had been executive producer on Cuomo’s show Primetime Live. When Cuomo entered the bar, he hugged Ross, then squeezed “the cheek of my buttock,” she wrote, in front of her husband.
Cuomo apologized via email a short while later.
Ross’s essay is entitled “Chris Cuomo Sexually Harassed Me. I Hope He’ll Use His Power to Make Change.”
Ross noted how Cuomo “escaped accountability for advising former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal.” She said she does not want to see him punished, but is hopeful that “this is an opportunity for him and his employer to show what accountability can look like in the #MeToo era.”
Cuomo anchors Cuomo Prime Time on CNN. His brother is Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down as New York governor in August following allegations of sexual misconduct.
Ross was an executive producer on ABC’s Primetime Live and Good Morning America, and The Early Show on CBS.
CNN shared a statement from Cuomo. “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature,” he said. “It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a top executive at ABC. I apologized to her then, and I meant it.”
