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They protected him for too long.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Dec 06, 2021
An allegation of sexual harassment emerged against Chris Cuomo days before he was officially fired from CNN.
Over the weekend, CNN announced, shortly after suspending the news anchor, that Chris would now be terminated from the company, effective immediately.
This comes as part of an investigation into Chris's involvement in advising his brother, former New York governor Andrew Cuomo, on the sexual misconduct allegation he faced this year.
Chris allegedly helped advise Andrew on what to do pending the sexual misconduct allegations more than CNN would have liked.
Why was Chris Cuomo fired from CNN?
In the official announcement of Chris Cuomo's termination, CNN credited his use of industry contacts to advise his brother as the reason for the firing.
"We retained a respected law firm to conduct the review, and have terminated him, effective immediately," CNN announced. "While in the process of review, additional information as come to light. Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate."
New details appeared to show Cuomo advising and intervening in PR strategy, which adds to what many had considered a serious breach in journalistic ethics.
However, this may not have been the only reason for his termination.
Chris Cuomo was accused of sexual harassment days before he was fired from CNN.
Attorney Debra Katz has said she contacted CNN on Wednesday about her client's allegations.
The client is a former colleague of Cuomo at ABC News who claims that he had sexually harassed her there.
“Hearing the hypocrisy of Chris Cuomo’s on-air words and disgusted by his efforts to try to discredit these women, my client retained counsel to report his serious sexual misconduct against her to CNN,” Katz said in the statement.
The new misconduct allegation comes months after a former ABC executive, Shelley Ross, claimed the younger Cuomo groped her at a work event while they were colleagues at ABC.
Chris Cuomo says he is 'disappointed' by his termination.
In a statement on Twitter, Cuomo reacted to CNN's announcement but didn't address the sexual harassment allegations.
“This is not how I want my time at CNN to end but I have already told you why and how I helped my brother. So let me now say as disappointing as this is, I could not be more proud of the team at Cuomo Prime Time and the work we did,” he said
According to the court documents and text messages that were revealed to the public, Chris worked with Melissa DeRosa, a then-top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to craft a defense for the flood of incoming sexual misconduct allegations and was instrumental to the process.
Back in May when all of this news started coming out, Chris admitted to the news network that he had offered advice to his brother's staff, and they didn’t take any action — in fact, the statement simply read “He will not participate in such conversations going forward."
Chris Cuomo's 'brother' defense is weak and insensitive.
Brotherly love shouldn’t matter when it comes to your professional job, nor should it matter when your brother is in the spotlight for sexual misconduct.
It should be a family’s job to hold your family member accountable, not help them form a defense against the many women who claim to have been victimized by him.
On air, Cuomo has said “I never attacked nor encouraged anyone to attack any woman who came forward. I never made calls to the press about my brother's situation."
He has also said he "never influenced or attempted to control CNN's coverage of my family.”
However, he did make calls to the press about Andrew’s situation and even contacted Ronan Farrow to learn more about an upcoming story.
Now, if the recent allegations are true, it shows that the Cuomo's moral attitude towards sexual misconduct is distorted at best. CNN likely cannot trust a journalist who advises his brother on such claims while getting off scott-free for his own controversial past.
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.