Charlie Rose, PBS interviewer and co-anchor of CBS This Morning, stands accused of sexual harassment by eight women.
The Washington Post reports that the allegations include “lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks, and genital areas.”
The accusers include employees and aspiring employees of Charlie Rose, the bare-bones, black-backgrounded, hour-long PBS interview program hearkening back to James Day’s Conversations from public television’s early years.
Of the two dozen or so Rose employees interviewed for the story, the Post says more than half either witnessed outright harassment or behavior that made them uncomfortable. A common interaction saw Rose giving shoulder rubs to the young women dubbed “Charlie’s Angels,” the story alleges. Rose’s bathroom behavior, which allegedly involved summoning underlings to him as he bathed, became so well-known by the women that they gave it a nickname: “the shower trick.”
Another anonymous woman describes Rose as repeatedly putting his hands down her pants.
Shortly after the release of the explosive Post report on Monday afternoon, CBS suspended Rose, who contributes to 60 Minutes and has occasionally anchored the evening news in addition to his other duties, and PBS announced an immediate halt to the distribution of Rose’s interview program.