Leslie Moonves demanded sex from multiple female colleagues before and after he came to work at CBS in 1995, but his alleged misconduct stopped after he married another colleague, on-air personality Julie Chen, according to the New York Times.
The alleged misconduct prior to his 2004 marriage to Chen included the former CBS chief demanding oral sex from at least four employees and having an employee “on call” to perform oral sex on him, the Times said, citing an internal draft report prepared for the network’s board of directors.
But Moonves’ marriage to Chen, when she was the co-host of CBS’ “The Early Show” and host of “Big Brother,” appears to have been a “bright line,” after which his sexual misconduct “seemed to have stopped,” the internal report says, according to the Times.
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The internal report was prepared by attorneys hired by CBS to uncover the extent of Moonves’ alleged misconduct and to determine whether he should should receive a $120 million severance package. Moonves stepped down as CBS chairman and CEO on Sept. 9.
But it looks like the lucrative exit deal could be in jeopardy, in part because the internal report found that Moonves destroyed evidence and misled investigators, the New York Times said. The attorneys said that Moonves, in four interviews, was “evasive and untruthful at times and deliberately lied about and minimized the extent of his sexual misconduct.”
The internal report said Moonves “engaged in multiple acts of serious nonconsensual sexual misconduct in and outside of the workplace, both before and after he came to CBS in 1995.” The report also includes previously undisclosed allegations of sexual misconduct against him, counting a total of 17 alleged victims. The report suggests that these women were expected to engage in sex with Moonves in exchange for acting jobs or other work opportunities.
Moonves, once one of the most powerful executives in television, left the network after harassment and assault allegations by 12 women came to light in reports by The New Yorker.
The scandal and Moonves’ resignation immediately raised questions about Chen’s future with the network. Chen decided to leave her co-hosting gig on CBS’ daytime show “The Talk” the week her husband resigned. In a videotaped announcement aired on “The Talk,” she said she was leaving the show to “spend time at home” with her husband and their young son. Chen had been on “The Talk” since its inception nine years earlier.
But Chen faced mounting calls to leave “The Talk” because she had voiced support for her husband, including by signing off a “Big Brother” episode by identifying herself as Julie Chen Moonves.
Other TV personalities, including Wendy Williams and “The View” co-host Joy Behar, said it would be awkward for Chen to stay on “The Talk” because she and other panelists spend time each episode discussing hot topics in the news and sharing tidbits about their personal lives.
One of the hot topics on “The Talk” and other daytime shows over the past year has been the #MeToo movement, and sexual harassment and assault allegations against powerful men in the media, including Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby.
Comedian Kathy Griffin was less charitable to Chen’s situation following Moonves’ resignation. In a lengthy Twitter rant in September, the comedian accused Chen of knowing more than she let on about Moonves’ alleged misconduct and of enabling his “misogyny,” including Moonves’ reported efforts to hurt Janet Jackson’s career following her infamous wardrobe malfunction on the 2004 CBS-broadcast Super Bowl.
While Chen left “The Talk,” she finished out Season 20 of “Big Brother” in late September. She and CBS also announced last week that she would host the second installment of “Big Brother: Celebrity Edition,” which would air on the network starting Jan. 21, Entertainment Weekly reported.
But that announcement also came the day before the New York Times published another expose about her husband’s alleged misconduct, this time focusing on his handling of an accusation involving actress Bobbie Phillips.
According to the New York Times, Phillips claimed that Moonves forced her to perform oral sex during a meeting in 1995. Over the past year, Moonves was trying to get her acting work in order to keep her from speaking publicly, the New York Times said.
According to the internal CBS report, Moonves told the network that Phillips had accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s, the New York Times said. But he did not reveal that Phillips’ manager had pushed him to find her work or that he used CBS resources to do so. Investigators also discovered that Moonves had deleted many of his hundreds of texts with the manager, the New York Times said.
