Chris Cuomo wanted to “kill everyone” and then himself after he was let go from CNN in late 2021, according to the man himself.
The former primetime anchor was fired from CNN after reports emerged that he helped his brother, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, navigate a sexual misconduct scandal that ended up ousting him from office. During an appearance on Anthony Scaramucci’s podcast Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci, the ex-CNN host said, “I had to accept [my firing] because I was going to kill everybody including myself.”
Elsewhere he said “things can consume you.” He continued, “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.”
Cuomo is currently seeking $125 million from CNN over his expulsion, saying in a March filing that he was “unjustifiably smeared” by the media company and accused them of making it “impossible” to find “similar work” in his field.
The 52-year-old has since started a new show on NewsNation but told Scaramucci that he’s embarrassed by his program’s tanking numbers. The New York Post had previously reported that his new show Cuomo drew 147,000 viewers on its debut in October 2022, while his highly contentious interview with Kanye West drew a mere 129,000 viewers.
Cuomo now knows he’ll likely never be at the top again.
“I’ll never be that again. That was taken from me, I believe wrongly,” he said. “I’ll litigate that. I’m not going to bitch about it in the press.”
He continued, “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.”
In his March filing, Cuomo’s lawyer argued that his client remained professional in the wake of the sexual misconduct scandal that consumed his brother, and was even forthcoming about his communications with him.
“It should, by now, be obvious to everyone that Chris Cuomo did not lie to CNN about helping his brother,” his attorney Bryan Freedman said in a statement, per NBC News. “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.”
Three months after Cuomo’s dismissal, CNN’s president Jeff Zucker resigned after failing to disclose a “consensual relationship” he had with a colleague.
Listen to the full interview with Anthony Scaramucci below.
