In an opinion piece published to the New York Times Friday, former ABC News executive Shelley Ross accused CNN anchor Chris Cuomo of sexual harassment. The alleged incident happened “at a going-away party for an ABC colleague” in 2005, back when Cuomo worked for Ross.
“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 wrote in the piece. “‘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.”
According to Ross, Cuomo wrote her an email an hour after the alleged harassment incident saying he was “ashamed”.
“As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature,” Cuomo said when asked for comment on the harassment accusation. “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.”
The harassment allegation comes just weeks after Andrew Cuomo, Chris’ brother, resigned from his position as New York governor in the wake of his own sexual harassment accusations. Andrew has denied touching any of the women inappropriately. Chris has faced criticism for his role in advising Andrew on how to deal with the fallout from the accusations.
“I was there to listen and offer my take,” Chris said on his CNN show “Cuomo Prime Time” last month. “And my advice to my brother was simple and consistent — own what you did, tell people what you’ll try to do to be better, be contrite.”
Ross said she didn’t want Chris to “become the next casualty” of the #MeToo movement.
“I would, however, like to see him journalistically repent,” Ross wrote. “Agree on air to study the impact of sexism, harassment and gender bias in the workplace, including his own, and then report on it.”
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