Days after his termination from CNN, Chris Cuomo announced on Monday that he is stepping away from his SiriusXM radio show, “Let’s Get After It.”
“The way my time ended at CNN was hard,” Cuomo wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. “While I have a thick skin, I also have a family, for whom the past week has been extraordinarily difficult.”
“So right now, I have to take a step back and focus on what comes next,” he added. “That means I will no longer be doing my SiriusXM radio show. I am extremely grateful for the support I have received from SiriusXM throughout my time there.”
Cuomo was initially suspended from CNN after documents released by New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office called into question the role he played in providing advice to his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as his administration became engulfed in scandal. He was terminated from the network on Saturday.
“It goes without saying that these decisions are not easy, and there are a lot of complex factors involved,” CNN president Jeff Zucker wrote in a note to the network’s staff on Saturday.
“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,” Cuomo wrote in a statement following his termination. “So let me say as disappointing as this is, I could not be more proud of the team at Cuomo Prime Time and the work we did as CNN’s #1 show in the most competitive time slot.”
“I owe them all and will miss that group of people who did really important work,” he added.
Cuomo also thanked his “loyal listeners,” saying that he “will miss our conversations a great deal” and said that he is looking forward “to being back in touch with you all in the future.
“Following Chris Cuomo’s statement that he is leaving his SiriusXM show, ‘Let’s Get After It’ will no longer air,” a spokesperson for the satellite radio company said in a statement. “We thank Chris for his work at SiriusXM.”
Shortly after Cuomo’s termination, a new allegation of harassment against him emerged. The accuser, who has chosen to remain anonymous, said she was was “disgusted” by what she saw as his hypocrisy and attempts to discredit women who made similar allegations against his brother, her lawyer Debra Kat zsaid Sunday.
Katz did not give any specifics about the alleged behavior, believed to have occurred before Cuomo joined CNN in 2013. Prior to that, he worked at ABC News.
Chris Cuomo, through a spokesman, said the charges were untrue. “If the goal in making these false and unvetted accusations was to see Mr. Cuomo punished by CNN, that may explain his unwarranted termination,” the spokesman said.
Katz also tied Cuomo’s firing to the accusations, saying in a statement that “CNN acted promptly on my client’s complaint and fired Mr. Cuomo.”
Katz said in Sunday’s statement that her client was motivated by Cuomo’s statements, regarding allegations against his brother, that he cared deeply and profoundly about issues of sexual misconduct. The woman also believed that Cuomo “played an active role in attempting to smear women” who had accused his brother, she said.
“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 to CNN,” the lawyer said.
The new misconduct allegation comes after a veteran TV executive, Shelley Ross, wrote a column for The New York Times in September saying Chris Cuomo had groped her at a party 16 years ago, when they both worked for ABC News. Cuomo told the newspaper “I apologized to her then, and I meant it.”
In responding to criticism of his actions regarding his brother, Cuomo has said that he was simply trying to help him — telling his CNN audience shortly after Andrew Cuomo resigned in August that “it’s never easy being in this business and coming from a political family.”
“I never attacked, nor encouraged anyone to attack, any woman who came forward,” Cuomo said on the air. “I never made calls to the press about my brother’s situation.”
However, in an email from last March newly released by the New York attorney general, Cuomo told one of his brother’s aides that “I have a lead on the wedding girl.” It was in reference to a woman who said in news reports she was uncomfortable with how the governor touched her when they met at a wedding.
Chris Cuomo, in testimony to Attorney General Letitia James’ investigators, explained that a “source” had called him and suggested that maybe the accuser had “been put up to” making the accusation. He relayed that to his brother’s aides, however they told him the woman had made her discomfort known soon after it happened.
Cuomo also testified to investigators — a month before he told CNN viewers he had not called the press about his brother’s situation — that he had reached out privately to media figures to find out if there would be other accusers.
Cuomo has said he never tried to influence his own network’s coverage of his brother’s problems, and no evidence has emerged that he did.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
