CNN President Jeff Zucker announced his resignation Wednesday, citing his failure to disclose a relationship with a network colleague as the reason for his abrupt exit.
This almost certainly isn’t the full story. For starters, he was reportedly pressured to resign. So, the good money says the network’s decision to force Zucker’s resignation was based on something far worse and far more egregious than just a failure to comply with corporate policy. Consider: CNN currently employs a workplace masturbator. So why would it drop its top man for having a “consensual relationship” with a marketing executive?
Zucker claims his affair with CNN Chief Marketing Officer Allison Gollust came to the surface last year following the network’s investigation of disgraced former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. Cuomo was fired last December for abusing his position to protect his brother, disgraced former Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, from multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.
Gollust, by the way, previously served as Andrew Cuomo’s spokeswoman. Before that, she worked alongside Zucker at NBC. After Gollust’s stint with the former governor, Zucker brought her to CNN.
Zucker’s resignation is reportedly the result of Chris Cuomo’s attempts to negotiate the $18 million severance payout he believes he is owed but the now-former CNN president refused to pay.
“Two sources with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly said that Cuomo’s legal team, which continues to negotiate his exit from the network, raised issues about the relationship between Zucker and Gollust,” Politico reports.
The report adds, “Cuomo’s legal team asserted that Zucker was hypocritical to suggest Cuomo had a personal conflict of interest when the relationship with Gollust represented a potential conflict as well.”
Zucker, who came to CNN in 2013, announced his surprise departure Wednesday in a memo to staff.
“As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN,” the memo reads, “I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years. I acknowledge the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong.”
Gollust, for her part, released a statement in which she said, “Jeff and I have been close friends and professional partners for over 20 years. Recently, our relationship changed during COVID. I regret that we didn’t disclose it at the right time.”
Their respective claims that the affair was a recent development, as recent as the coronavirus pandemic, are an outright lie, according to both on-the-record and anonymous media sources. The truth, these critics say, is the two have been — ahem — involved for many years. They also say the relationship is a well-known “secret” in media circles.
It was “basically an open secret,” former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien claimed Wednesday. Former NBC host Megyn Kelly likewise alleged the affair was “an open secret in the media world. No one would touch it.” Former Today host Katie Couric, who worked with both Zucker and Gollust at NBC, strongly insinuates in her new memoir the affair began several years ago, back when they were both married to other people. Couric’s memoir is careful to mention the lengths to which Zucker went to suggest Gollust for positions for which she was neither qualified nor needed.
If we’re to believe Chris Cuomo leveraged Zucker’s affair in severance negotiations with CNN, then we’re compelled also to believe the affair has been a long-running open secret — well-known enough for the dumber of the Cuomo brothers to bring it up amid a contentious legal battle.
But here’s the thing: If the “consensual relationship” was well-known and long-running, why is Zucker just now resigning?
If the affair was brought up in private legal negotiations, why would CNN’s top brass feel the need to let Zucker go, especially when the network currently employs such infamously sleazy figures as Jeffrey Toobin? If CNN was afraid the relationship would become public knowledge, well, that ship has already sailed. Radar Online reported last month Gollust and Zucker “left their marriages” over their yearslong affair.
It wasn’t exactly a well-kept secret.
It’s tempting to suspect Zucker was forced out over CNN’s chronically low ratings, but again, why now? The network’s ratings have been in the toilet for some time. Also, if Zucker was forced to resign because he wrecked the organization’s ratings, why would he cite his affair with Gollust as the reason for his exit? Is this somehow less humiliating?
One is left, then, with the inescapable feeling that the incestuousness of it all — the network’s now-contentious relationship with Chris Cuomo, the soured relationship between Zucker and Chris Cuomo, Gollust’s connections to Andrew Cuomo, the Cuomo family’s infamous vindictive streak, etc. — means there’s likely something else out there, something worse.
I haven’t even mentioned the sexual assault charges against host Don Lemon or the CNN producers (plural) who are under criminal investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct involving “juvenile victims.”
So yeah, something is seriously wrong at CNN.
