CNN’s Chris Cuomo Accused Of Sexually Harassing Former Boss At 2005 Party
Just a month after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stepped down due to heavy sexual harassment allegations, his brother is now being accused of the same thing.
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In a New York Times op-ed published Friday, a former ABC executive producer accused Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her at a 2005 work party after he grabbed her butt in front of her husband and coworkers — later calling it a “hearty greeting.” Shelley Ross explained that Chris actually admitted to it in an email, telling her he was “ashamed.”
“I was at the party with my husband, who sat behind me on an ottoman sipping his Diet Coke as I spoke with work friends. When Mr. Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar, he walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock,” Ross said. She noted that she was working as an executive producer of an ABC entertainment program at the time, but had been Cuomo’s boss on ABC’s “Primetime Live” just prior.
“I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,” he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. “No you can’t,” I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.”
Ross said she printed a copy of an email from Cuomo the same evening where he also noted actor Christian Slater had been arrested for similar conduct, but he personally didn’t have any bad intentions behind his actions.
“[T]hough my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you … christian slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act, (though borne of an alleged negative intent, unlike my own)…and as a husband I can empathize with not liking to see my wife patted as such,” he wrote.
Cuomo, who was 34 at the time of the alleged incident, reportedly asked Ross to share an apology to her “very good and noble husband,” as well: “I apologize to you as well, for even putting you in su]ch a position.” He added he would remember his lesson the next time he was happy to see her.
“Mr. Cuomo may say this is a sincere apology. I’ve always seen it as an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability,” Ross wrote.
Chris Cuomo has yet to publicly react to these allegations.
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