What happened
Longevity influencer Dr. Peter Attia said Monday he has stepped down from his new position as a CBS News contributor, weeks after his name appeared more than 1,700 times in Jeffrey Epstein emails released by the Justice Department. CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss announced Attia’s hire last month as part of her slate of new contributors.
Who said what
Attia apologized earlier this month for his “embarrassing, tasteless and indefensible” emails with Epstein between 2015 and 2018, after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for soliciting sex with a minor but before his 2019 arrest on sex-trafficking charges. Attia said he was not involved in any of Epstein’s criminal activity or “sexual abuse or exploitation.” A spokesperson said Monday that Attia “stepped back to ensure his involvement didn’t become a distraction” for the network while his contributor role “had not yet meaningfully begun.”
The controversy is the “latest setback” for CBS News since Weiss took over last year, The New York Times said. After the Epstein emails were released, the network “went silent on the matter, with representatives not responding to multiple requests for comment” on Attia’s status. He “had been expected to remain a contributor,” given that Weiss is a prominent “critic of so-called ‘cancel culture,’” The Hollywood Reporter said.
What next?
Several other companies “said they had parted ways with Attia” in recent weeks, including supplement company AG1, Virta Health and protein-bar maker David, The Wall Street Journal said. His popular weekly show “hasn’t released a new podcast episode since late last month.”
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