Les Moonves Loses $120M Severance After CBS Finds Sexual Misconduct, Coverup

Les Moonves won’t receive $120M after CBS investigation Image by Getty Images

By Jenny Singer December 18, 2018

It’s a strange day when feminists, muckrakers, and a gigantic corporation can all rejoice at once, but today is such a day.

CBS announced that an investigation into sexual assault allegations against Les Moonves found that the ex-CEO committed widespread sexual misconduct and misled investigators. As a result, he will be fired as well as denied the $120 million payout he otherwise would have received for being ousted from the company, the New York Times reports.

Moonves, the TV titan who oversaw two decades worth of hits like “Survivor” and “The Big Bang Theory,” was found by independent investigators hired by CBS to have “engaged in multiple acts of serious nonconsensual sexual misconduct in and outside of the workplace, both before and after he came to CBS,” the New York Times reported in December.

Moonves’ exit from the company was all but a foregone conclusion, but the announcement today that he will not receive $120 million in severance is significant. In a statement, the CBS board wrote, “We have determined that there are grounds to terminate for cause, including his willful and material misfeasance, violation of company policies and breach of his employment contract, as well as his willful failure to cooperate fully with the company’s investigation.”

The investigation from CBS comes after six women told the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow that Moonves sexually harassed or assaulted them in July, joined by six more women in September, as well as dozens more who reported inappropriate behavior.

One of Moonves’ many gambits during the investigation included deleting texts in which he attempted to quiet an accuser, the Times found. In another audacious move, when investigators asked him to hand over his iPad, he gave them the iPad belonging to his son.

Prior to coming to CBS, Les Moonves produced shows like “Friends” and “Full House.” He is, of all things, the great-nephew by marriage of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion.

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at Singer@forward.com or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

Jenny Singer is a freelance writer with pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Teen Vogue, and more. She was previously a staff writer at Glamour and the Forward, and she’s currently getting an MFA in nonfiction writing at the University of Iowa.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO