On Wednesday, Jeff Zucker made the surprise announcement that he was resigning as president of CNN, claiming his resignation was due to his failure to disclose a “consensual relationship” with CNN executive vice president and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust during the Cuomo investigation.
“As part of the investigation into Chris Cuomo’s tenure at CNN, I was asked about a consensual relationship with my closest colleague, someone I have worked with for more than 20 years,” Zucker wrote in his statement. “I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when I began but I didn’t. I was wrong.”
But this doesn’t completely add up. Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien, who was with the embattled network from 2003 to 2013, says Zucker’s relationship with Gollust was an “open secret” even while she was at the network. Gollust claimed in her own statement that the relationship evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, but O’Brien says that isn’t true either.
Former CNN correspondent Roland Martin also said the relationship was common knowledge.
If the relationship was an open secret, why did Zucker resign?
CNN anchor Brian Stelter is accusing his former colleague of trying to “burn the place down,” in reference to the network.
“He’s not going out quietly. There were reports he was going to get paid the millions of dollars on the remainder of his contract. As a source said earlier today, he was trying to burn the place down,” Stelter added. “He was going to court trying to burn the place down and claiming he had incriminating information. If this is the case, this is a domino effect that begins with Andrew Cuomo and Chris Cuomo being fired. That’s a remarkable domino event I think that’s part of the story.”
Chris Cuomo made a point to say in December through a spokesperson that he and Zucker were “extremely close and in regular contact, including about the details of Mr. Cuomo’s support for his brother.” The veiled threat was quite clear. And he certainly followed through.
Chris Cuomo, upset over being fired and for Zucker refusing to pay out the remainder of his contract (approximately $18 million), reportedly informed AT&T, which owns CNN, about Zucker and Gollust’s relationship, in order to prove that they were involved in the same violation of journalistic standards that Cuomo had been.
According to Erik Wemple of the Washington Post, “Gollust and Zucker were instrumental in securing the Cuomo-on-Cuomo interviews. Though Andrew Cuomo’s staff assented to the early appearances, they had second thoughts about continuing the series.” Wemple’s source told him that the governor’s staff initially pushed back, prompting Gollust, who once worked as the governor’s communication director” to “appeal directly to the governor” to get him on the air with his brother regularly, in violation of their so-called standards.
So it certainly seems that Zucker’s resignation is over more than just his relationship. But the question remains, who will Cuomo go after next?
