Chris Cuomo Wanted to ‘Kill Everybody Including Myself’ After CNN Firing

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
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Chris Cuomo is continuing to call out CNN for his 2021 termination.

The former primetime anchor was fired from the network after a meeting with his brother, then-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, came to light about how to respond to sexual harassment allegations. Cuomo filed a $125 million lawsuit against CNN in 2022 for wrongful termination.

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“I had to accept [my firing] because I was going to kill everybody including myself,” Cuomo said during an episode of President Trump’s former White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci’s Spotify podcast “Open Book With Anthony Scaramucci” (via Complex).

He continued, “Things can consume you. Italians are so passionate. There is damage that is relatable, there is damage that is unrelatable to people that I have to deal with, that I am working on.”

The lawsuit against CNN claims a “smear campaign” led by the network blacklisted him from similar news anchor positions. Cuomo has since started a NewsNation evening timeslot news show and began a podcast. Cuomo shared that he is “trying to have a broader aperture on what matters,” but admitted that he is aware he will never have a CNN-level of fame anytime soon.

“I’ll never be that again. That was taken from me, I believe wrongly,” Cuomo said. “I’ll litigate that. I’m not going to bitch about it in the press.”

Cuomo added, “I’m trying to remember what I’ve been through every day, and not forgetting and falling back into what works and what will rate more and what will get me higher on the media list and what will get more people talking about me.”

The anchor previously told “No Bulls–t Newshour” podcast hosts that he was “emotionally and psychologically beat up and changed” by the CNN firing.

Cuomo’s attorney Bryan Freedman, who also represented Megyn Kelly in 2018, said in a statement to NBC News that the ongoing lawsuit proves that Cuomo “did not lie to CNN” about his involvement in the governor’s scandal.

“It should, by now, be obvious to everyone that Chris Cuomo did not lie to CNN about helping his brother,” Freedman said. “In fact, as the limited information released from WarnerMedia’s investigation makes clear, CNN’s highest-level executives not only knew about Chris’s involvement in helping his brother but also actively assisted the Governor, both through Chris and directly themselves.”

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