Veteran television producer Shelley Ross published an open letter on Friday. The New York Times in which he denounces that the star presenter of the CNN, Chris Cuomo, sexually harassed her at a party in 2005. Ross had been an executive producer on the Cuomo show Primetime Live on ABC News, but when the events occurred he was in charge of another space on the television network. “I can do this now that you are no longer my boss,” the journalist released after grabbing “firmly” one of his buttocks. “No, you can’t,” Ross replied, pulling away. An hour later, Cuomo sent him an email asking for his forgiveness.
Chris Cuomo is the brother of former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August beset by a sex scandal. The Prosecutor’s Office corroborated the accusations of sexual harassment of 11 women by the Democrat, who defended his innocence at all times and only apologized for having acted “in a way that made people uncomfortable.” The investigations of the case revealed that the journalist of the CNN he advised his brother in an email chain that included members of the politician’s staff on how to handle the crisis at the communicational level.
Ross explains in the letter that he is not looking to have Cuomo fired from the CNN, but regrets “journalistically” for their actions. In his words, that the presenter commit to the viewers that he will study the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias in the workplace, including his own, “and then report on that.”
Two recent events prompted Ross to tell his story publicly. The first was at the beginning of March, when the presenter explained in his program of the CNN Cuomo Prime Time that he would no longer cover his brother’s management of the pandemic in New York due to the sexual harassment scandal in which he was involved. “I have always been deeply and deeply concerned with these issues. I just wanted to tell you that, ”said the journalist. The second event occurred last Labor Day, when Chris Cuomo was seen wearing a T-shirt with the word “truth.” The complainant maintains in the letter that both episodes “were provocations in this era of personal responsibility.”
Asked about the letter, Cuomo responded to The New York Times: “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. It happened 16 years ago in a public setting when she was a senior executive at ABC. So I apologized to him and I meant it ”. Ross narrates in his post that Cuomo sent him an email apologizing an hour after he “sexually harassed” her. He also notes that he “never” thought Cuomo’s behavior was “sexual in nature.” “Whether he understood it at the time or not, his form of sexual harassment was a hostile act designed to diminish and belittle his former boss in front of the staff,” he says.
The email sent by Cuomo the night of the party said he was “embarrassed.” “But my question today is the same as then: Was he ashamed of what he did or was he ashamed that my husband saw it?” In the mail, the journalist first apologized to Ross’s “very good and noble husband” and then to her for “even putting her in such a position.” The complainant maintains that, while Cuomo may make his apology sincere, for her it is “an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral cover to evade responsibility.”
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