Dinah Kirgo Says The Moonves Damaged Her Career After She Rebuffed Him: NPR

MICHEL MARTIN , HOST:

We have reported that the longtime chairman and chief executive officer of CBS Corporation, Leslie Moonves, has been accused of making crude and unwanted badual advances towards them and retaliating against them when he was rebuffed. Ronan Farrow published this report in The New Yorker on Friday.

Now we're going to hear from this. Dinah Kirgo is an Emmy Award-winning TV writer. She wrote for "The Tracey Ullman Show" and "Beverly Hills, 90210." She told Farrow she first encountered Moonves in the early 1980s when he was a vice president at a production company partnering with Columbia Pictures Television. Dinah Kirgo is speaking out for the first time since the article came out. And Dinah Kirgo is with us now from Los Angeles.

Dinah, thanks for talking with us.

DINAH KIRGO: Oh, thank you, Michel.

MARTIN: So you and your sister Julie, who's your producing partner, had a meeting with him, and you left that meeting thinking that you had a deal. What happened after that?

KIRGO: Right. Julie and Leslie and I really felt great after the meeting. You know, it went really well. Julie and I both felt like, OK, I think this is where we're going for a while.

And I got home from the meeting in mid-afternoon. And my phone was ringing, and it was Leslie. And he said, boy, what a great meeting. I said, I know. We're really excited about working with you. And he said, well, I think we should have a dinner. And I said, great. Julie and I would love to have dinner with you. And he said, no – just you and me. And that kind of floored me.

And I'm not actually sure what I said in response, but he said, look, you're really expensive, and I need to know you're worth it. And that really shook me up a bit. And I said something like, Leslie, I do not think your wife would appreciate that kind of dinner. And the conversation ended, and he went from being very friendly to being really cold. And I never heard from him again. Julie never heard from him again. And, obviously, we never worked together.

MARTIN: Now, The New Yorker reported that CBS has responded to this question by saying that it has no recollection of the meeting

KIRGO: Right. 19659003] MARTIN: And we should also say that Moonves said in a statement about the general report that he says – and I quote – "I recognize that there have been times when I made some women uncomfortable by making advances Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely, but I always understood and abided by the principle that no means, and I've never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone's career. " But I understand that you do not believe he did retaliate against you. How so?

KIRGO: Well, in just the simple fact that he did not hire us when he was rebuffed by me. There was no offer forthcoming. If you're not responsible for damaging anybody's career – if you're not getting employed because you've rebuffed somebody, that's grooming.

MARTIN: What did it become like? others have come out?

KIRGO: I did not read Ronan Farrow's article until Friday. And I actually was just completely sickened by the stories of the other women. And I sort of like, god, like, my story's so minor. And I was lucky in that – and my sister and I were in this meeting together, so nothing happened to me with Leslie. But I was just so disturbed. And people think that we're trying to get these guys down, and that is – at least in my case, that is so not true. It's about stopping this behavior

MARTIN: Over the years, has this incident been with you? I mean, how do you think it plays in your life?

KIRGO: Well, I think it's never gone away. I mean, it's just like – it was this incident. At the time, I had a strong reaction to it, obviously, but it was able to make it easier to work.

one day, it just is not anymore. And when the whole Harvey Weinstein story broke, it just pushed the buttons. You know, there is now a support system. In the Writers Guild of America, they formed a badual harbadment task force within the last year. And if I had had any kind of support back then, I hope I would have been able to take advantage of it. But I just did not know what to do. I did not even think it was anything I could do

MARTIN: Before we let you go, what do you think should happen now?

KIRGO: Well, I'm hoping that it's just not easy anymore. This world is such a rarified world. But I know this happens everywhere. But I think that we can keep this at the center of things – you know, I'm sitting here going, are we in the middle of this? Are we at the beginning of this story? I'm not sure where we are. But, as long as it is, I think we need to keep it that way if we are thinking about doing this thing and thinking it's OK, they'll have a second thought about it.

MARTIN: That's Dinah Kirgo. She's an Emmy Award-winning writer, and we spoke to her in Los Angeles.

Dinah Kirgo, thanks so much for talking to us.

KIRGO: Thank you, Michel.

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