The story hasn’t even been published yet, but reports of an upcoming New Yorker exposé revealing allegations of sexual misconduct against CEO Leslie Moonves have already caused CBS stock to fall nearly six percent as the media company’s board says it plans to investigate the charges against him. Fueling the panic at CBS is the byline on the story: It was written by Ronan Farrow, whose reporting on Harvey Weinstein’s myriad sex crimes last fall won Weinstein multiple felony charges and Farrow a Pulitzer Prize.
The details of the allegations are under wraps until the story publishes in The New Yorker. (That’s expected to happen sometime later today.) But there are reportedly multiple allegations spanning a period of several decades, involving “unwanted kissing and touching” on Moonves’ part as well as “the broader culture at CBS.” Moonves is currently involved in a legal dispute with controlling shareholder Shari Redstone over Redstone’s plan to merge CBS and Viacom, which she jointly controls via a family trust; that dispute is set to play out in a Delaware court in October. CBS’s news division has also been under intense scrutiny over the past nine months or so, following Charlie Rose’s firing from the network in November amid a passel of harassment chargers of his own.
[via Variety, The Hollywood Reporter]