Producer says Chris Cuomo sexually harassed her in 2005 but apologized later

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A former executive producer wrote a column in The New York Times where she says current CNN anchor Chris Cuomo sexually harassed her while they both worked at ABC News.

Shelley Ross accused Cuomo of grabbing her buttock while at a bar for a work party.

“’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,” she writes.

Ross had recently left the job as EP of “Primetime Live,” which Cuomo anchored at the time.

She goes on to write that Cuomo emailed her later to apologize and noted that she did not consider Cuomo’s actions to have a sexual undertone.

The column includes a statement from Cuomo that reads “As Shelley acknowledges, our interaction was not sexual in nature. 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 revelations come on the heals that Cuomo’s brother, Andrew Cuomo, being accused of sexual harassment — which forced him to resign as governor of New York.

Chris Cuomo took some heat after acknowledging he gave his brother advice while also serving as the anchor of news program and later promised to refrain from doing so. He also said his show would not cover the topic, but other CNN programs would be free to as news warranted.

Chris Cuomo left ABC in 2017 for CNN, where he was originally co-anchor of the network’s relaunched morning show “New Day.” In 2018 he began hosting “Cuomo Prime Time,” which has grown to one of the network’s highest rated shows.