Les Moonves Officially Out at CBS, Will Make $20 Million Donation to #MeToo Groups
Les Moonves is departing from his role at the head of CBS, according to CBS Sunday night.
He and CBS will also reportedly donate $20 million to #MeToo and women’s workplace-related charities.
The first reports of Moonves expected departure came just hours after The New Yorker‘s Ronan Farrow published yet another damaging report detailing accusations made by six more women against Moonves.
Farrow reported in the early morning bombshell:
As the negotiations continue and shareholders and advocacy groups accuse the board of failing to hold Moonves accountable, new allegations are emerging. Six additional women are now accusing Moonves of sexual harassment or assault in incidents that took place between the nineteen-eighties and the early aughts. They include claims that Moonves forced them to perform oral sex on him, that he exposed himself to them without their consent, and that he used physical violence and intimidation against them. A number of the women also said that Moonves retaliated after they rebuffed him, damaging their careers.
Yet, it seems that the saga did not end there.
Vanity Fair also published an account on Sunday of a female doctor who reports that Moonves was inappropriate with her as well.
As per Vanity Fair:
Farrow’s initial piece on Moonves presumably helped him surface other women who claimed similar stories. Shortly after his first New Yorker story was published, a source familiar with the situation told me that Moonves was the anonymous subject of a recent article published this past May by Dr. Anne Peters in the Annals of Internal Medicine, under the headline “A Physician’s Place in the #MeToo Movement.” In her article, Peters recounted an incident with a patient from the past. “It happened many years ago in an examination room where I’d been asked to see a V.I.P. patient early in the morning before regular business hours,” she wrote. “I remember the early-morning light filtering through the blinds.” She and her patient sat at a small table as she conducted her initial interview. After that, when she and the patient moved to her examination table, “he grabbed me as I stepped forward,” Peters wrote. “He pulled himself against me and tried to force himself on me. He did this twice; when I rebuffed him, he stood beside the examination table and satisfied himself. After he finished, he reassembled himself and left.”
Moonves has responded to the doctor’s allegations, telling Vanity Fair through a representative, “The appalling allegations about my conduct toward a female physician some 20 years ago are untrue. What is true, and what I deeply regret, is that I tried to kiss the doctor. Nothing more happened.”
He also maintains that the claims reported by Farrow are untrue.
“The appalling accusations in this article are untrue. What is true is that I had consensual relations with three of the women some 25 years ago before I came to CBS. And I have never used my position to hinder the advancement or careers of women,” Moonves said in response to Farrow’s report. “In my 40 years of work, I have never before heard of such disturbing accusations. I can only surmise they are surfacing now for the first time, decades later, as part of a concerted effort by others to destroy my name, my reputation, and my career.”
CBS has also issued a statement stating they are taking “these allegations very seriously“ and stressing, “our board of directors is conducting a thorough investigation of these matters, which is ongoing.”
Chief Operating Officer Joseph Ianniello will act as Acting CEO.
This article has been updated to reflected CBS’s report of Moonves departure and $20 million donation to #MeToo charities.
[image via screengrab]
