Word on the street is that CBS execs are probably going to use Gayle King’s relationship with Oprah Winfrey to try to get Oprah to fill in for alleged, and disgraced, sexual predator Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning.
It’s not as if King doesn’t name-drop Oprah 24-7 anyway. On Monday, after Rose’s sexual harassment scandal dropped, King said she talked to her billionaire bestie about the situation.
“I really am still reeling. I got an hour and 42 minutes of sleep last night,” she said. “Both my son and my daughter called me. Oprah called me and said, ‘Are you OK?’ I am not OK.”
A Page Six source said that the network is “begging Oprah to fill in.”
“Not full time ... but they are hoping she’ll do one day, two days, one hour, fill in ’til Christmas. Anything,” the source added,
CBS This Morning has always trailed Good Morning America and the Today show in the a.m., but once Rose came on, that gap had been steadily closing.
But again, they may have to use King to get that ball rolling, because CBS reportedly wooed Oprah for five years before she recently agreed to join 60 Minutes.
In other Charlie Rose news, three CBS employees have come forward to accuse the anchor of sexual harassment during his time at the network. This would be in addition to the other eight who already said that he acted inappropriately toward them in a recent Washington Post report.
Two of the three accusers said that Rose groped them at work-related events, with one saying that he whispered a sexual innuendo in her ear. CBS actually broke the story itself and says it learned of “these cases not from the HR department, but from our own investigation of his behavior.”
CBS fired Charlie Rose on Monday, and PBS dropped his Charlie Rose show the next day.