Ex ABC Executive Producer Shelley Ross Details How Chris Cuomo Harassed Her In Front of Husband [Details]
Shelley Ross, a former ABC executive producer, claims CNN anchor Chris Cuomo grabbed her butt in front of her husband at a party in 2005 after they worked together on "Primetime Live." She was actually his boss. S
Shelley Ross claims CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, 51, groped her buttock at a business party in 2005, while they were both working at ABC News, and then had the gall to joke about it.
Ross wrote an op-ed for The New York Times on Friday, September 24, describing the event, recalling how she quickly reacted to the now-CNN anchor's actions.
She said she pushed back, but Cuomo even smugly told her that she Cuomo allegedly said to her, even if her husband is right there and can see the whole thing went down, "I can do this now that you're no longer my boss.
Ross claimed the tone she heard has a smug quality to it. Cuomo allegedly apologized and expressed sorrow in an email received an hour after the event, according to the executive producer.
"[N]ow that I think of it... [I] am ashamed," the subject line said. The anchor asked Ross to "pass my apology along to your very good and noble husband," and extended the same to her. "[I] apologize to you as well, for even putting you in such a postition [sic]," Ross claimed Cuomo wrote. Despite the apologies, Ross was perplexed as to why it was sent in the first place.
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She wrote, "Was he ashamed of what he did, or was he embarrassed because my husband saw it?" she wrote. "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."
The former executive producer also wondered about the anchor's motives in grabbing her rear end. "I never thought that Mr. 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 meant to diminish and belittle his female former boss in front of the staff," she wrote.
In a new statement to The Times in response to the op-ed, Cuomo persisted that he was 100% sincere with his apology. He said Ross already acknowledged the fact that what happened was "not sexual in nature." He stated, "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," he told The Times.
