Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley said he was accused of physically abusing newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton before he was fired from the show he had worked on since 2004.
In an interview published Sunday by the New York Times, Pelley said CBS News President Tom Cibrowski accused him of “physically abusing” Bilton during an explosive meeting one day before his termination.
Recommended Stories
“Before I can take my seat, Tom Cibrowski said, this is a firing offense,” Pelley told the New York Times. “So I sit down, like, OK, let’s talk about it. Tom accuses me of physically abusing Nick Bilton. This is a lie. I didn’t come within 10 feet of Nick Bilton. In my life, I have never put my hands on anyone in anger.”
Pelley said Cibrowski then retracted his statement because “he was caught in that lie.”
Pelley, whose tenure spanned 37 years at the network, gave new color to the circumstances that led to his firing.
The veteran correspondent said he did not expect to be fired following a meeting in which he accused CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, who did not attend the meeting, of “murdering” the long-running agency, calling it the “furthest thing from my mind.”
During the meeting that ultimately led to Pelley’s termination, the correspondent challenged Bilton’s qualifications and sharply criticized Weiss for changes she had made to the network, including firing former executive producer Tanya Simon.
Pelley said he was originally going to miss the meeting with Bilton because of a planned trip, but canceled the vacation because he “realized that this was an existential moment for ’60 Minutes.'”
In the interview released Sunday, Pelley disputed claims Bilton made in the letter informing Pelley of his firing.
Bilton said he had invited Pelley to dinner shortly after taking on the role to discuss changes that had been made, which Bilton claims Pelley rejected.
Pelley said he declined the invitation because he was “too emotionally wrought up.”
“I am going to say the wrong thing,” Pelley said. “I am not going to hear what they have to say. This isn’t the moment.”
Pelley also explained the contents of Bilton’s welcome email, saying the entering leader spoke about the show as if it were “frozen in amber.”
“He told us that it wasn’t 1968 anymore, and he helpfully noted that gasoline doesn’t cost 32 cents anymore, suggested that we had all been frozen in amber in 1968 when the program first went on the air, and that nothing had improved,” Pelley said in the interview.
“It betrayed the fact that Nick Bilton didn’t know anything about us, didn’t know anything about our culture, and yet was being imposed on us as our new leader,” he added.
Bilton, in his letter, had also accused Pelley of “hijacking” the meeting to “disparage” the new leader.
Pelley explained that he went into the meeting expecting to get answers from Weiss about the “tragedy” of hiring Bilton and the changes made at the network in order to create a show “that thrives in the 21st century,” which Weiss and Cibrowski had said “requires a new approach.”
60 MINUTES HOST SCOTT PELLEY FIRED AFTER ACCUSING CBS CHIEF OF ‘MURDERING’ SHOW
“As we’re standing in there, Nick makes his way to the front of the room and does something absolutely jaw-dropping to me,” Pelley said. “He pulls out his phone and begins reading a statement off his phone in a room full of 50 heartbroken people. The callousness, the tone deafness of that, you could hear the groan in the room. They put out a big spread of bagels like we were all going to feel better.”
The interview show that has been on air since 1968 is set to return Sunday, without Pelley, and will feature guest anchors.
