Longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley said he was accused of physically abusing newly appointed executive producer Nick Bilton before he was fired from the show he had worked on since 2004.In an interview published Sunday , Pelley said CBS News President Tom Cibrowski accused him of “physically abusing” Bilton during an explosive meeting one day before his termination.“Before I can take my seat, Tom Cibrowski said, this is a firing offense,” Pelley told the New York Times. “So I sit down, like, OK, let’s talk about it. Tom accuses me of physically abusing Nick Bilton. This is a lie. I didn’t come within 10 feet of Nick Bilton. In my life, I have never put my hands on anyone in anger.”
Pelley said Cibrowski then retracted his statement because “he was caught in that lie.”
Pelley, whose tenure spanned 37 years at the network, gave new color to the circumstances that led to his firing.
The veteran correspondent said he did not expect to be fired following a meeting in which he accused CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, who did not attend the meeting, of “murdering” the long-running agency, calling it the “furthest thing from my mind.”
During the meeting that ultimately led to Pelley’s termination, the correspondent challenged Bilton’s qualifications and sharply criticized Weiss for changes she had made to the network, including firing former executive producer Tanya Simon.
