Former TV host Charlie Rose settles sexual harassment lawsuit

Former TV host Charlie Rose has resolved a sexual harassment lawsuit introduced by three ladies within the wake of his #MeToo-era ouster from CBS Information in 2017 and the cancellation of his long-running, eponymous PBS discuss present.

In settling, the plaintiffs stated they assign no “in poor health intent” to Rose and understand now that his conduct might be topic to interpretation.

Attorneys for Rose and the ladies — youthful staff who accused him of “predatory conduct” and “blatant and repeated sexual harassment” — filed court docket papers this week confirming that the lawsuit has been resolved. A web-based court docket docket listed the case as settled. The phrases weren’t disclosed.

The lawsuit had been set to go to trial Monday in Manhattan after years of sparring over the ladies’s allegations and the dismissal of their retaliation claims towards Rose.

Plaintiffs Katherine Brooks Harris, Sydney McNeal and Yuqing Wei stated in a press release that the litigation course of and the required pretrial trade of proof referred to as discovery had enabled either side to “higher perceive every others’ factors of view.”

“On reflection, and after having the good thing about discovery, we understand that completely different individuals may interpret the conduct in numerous methods, and subsequently we have now resolved the claims,” the ladies stated. “We don’t assign any dangerous motive or in poor health intent to Charlie Rose.”

A lawyer for Rose, 82, and his manufacturing firm, Charlie Rose Inc., declined remark.

The veteran TV host has apologized up to now for his conduct, together with in a press release on the eve of his November 2017 firing after no less than eight ladies had come ahead to accuse him of misconduct. 

“It’s important that these ladies know I hear them and I deeply apologize for my inappropriate conduct,” Rose stated. “I’m vastly embarrassed. I’ve behaved insensitively at instances, and I settle for accountability for that, although I don’t consider that every one of those allegations are correct. I at all times felt that I used to be pursuing shared emotions, regardless that I now understand I used to be mistaken.”

Rose’s downfall was a part of America’s #MeToo reckoning with sexual misconduct by highly effective figures — a social media-fueled motion that additionally took down “In the present day” host Matt Lauer and film mogul Harvey Weinstein, amongst others. In September 2018, Rose stated the three ladies he settled with this week had been “exploiting the #MeToo motion” when he filed a movement to dismiss the lawsuit. 

Rose is now internet hosting an interview present on YouTube the place his latest friends have included writer Michael Lewis and broadcaster Bob Costas.

Harris, McNeal and Wei sued Rose and CBS in state court docket in New York in Could 2018, about six months after CBS fired him as an anchor on its morning present, then referred to as “CBS This Morning,” and PBS and Bloomberg Tv dropped his nightly “Charlie Rose Present,” which had been on the air since 1991. 

Harris was a broadcast affiliate at “CBS This Morning,” and he or she later labored as an affiliate producer for Rose’s PBS present. McNeal was Rose’s government assistant. Wei was a information affiliate and later an anchor assistant for Rose at “CBS This Morning.”

The ladies, all of their early 20s after they had been employed, accused the a lot older Rose of subjecting them to repeated bodily and verbal sexual harassment whereas working, together with inquires about their intercourse lives and boasts about his personal. Harris and McNeal alleged that Rose stated “they had been employed as a result of he likes ‘tall ladies,’ i.e., he was interested in them,” and Wei alleged that Rose referred to her “as China doll.”  The three ladies additionally accused CBS of knowingly failing to stop Rose’s harassment.

CBS settled in December 2018 for an undisclosed sum. The community stated on the time that the ladies had requested the phrases be stored confidential.

Had the lawsuit gone to trial, Rose’s lawyer stated in court docket papers that he would problem the credibility of Harris, McNeal and Wei’s claims with proof exhibiting they’d beforehand expressed little or no concern concerning the ex-anchor.

Among the many proof, lawyer Jonathan Bach wrote in a Nov. 13 submitting, had been paperwork exhibiting that Wei informed a CBS human sources officer that she skilled nothing “sexually inappropriate” whereas working for Rose and that McNeal confided in her therapist on the time that she had no private expertise of sexual harassment by Rose.

Different proof cited by Bach confirmed that Harris had informed her therapist that any harassment by Rose was “very refined” and that she wrote to Rose two months after working for him that his interactions together with her had been “at all times skilled and respectful.”