Shelley Ross Biography
Shelley Ross is an Emmy award-winning television producer and executive who has worked at NBC, CBS and ABC News where she is best known for her tenure as executive producer of Good Morning America. She is also an author and patient advocate. She has accused Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her while she was Cuomo’s executive producer at Primetime Live.
Shelley Ross Age
She is 68 years old as of 2021.
Shelley Rose Education
She graduated from the University of Miami.
Shelley Ross Husband
She is married to David Simone, a successful record-industry executive. His most successful career acquisition is the catalog of a little-known Trinidadian songwriter. Hidden in the catalog was one particular gem. He also purchased the complete catalog of Hall and Oates.
Shelley Ross Journalist
She began her career in the mid-1970’s as a cub reporter in Florida. In 1976 she became an editor at the National Enquirer becoming the youngest editor at 24. She helped invent the form of journalism that is popularly called tabloid TV news—born of that first interview with Mr. Manson and honed to a fine point with Judith Regan’s recent abortive efforts with O.J. Simpson.
Shelley Ross Producer
Ross worked as a producer and writer for “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” on NBC News.
Shelley Ross ABC News
Shelley joined ABC News in June 1984 as a senior producer. She was in charge of primetime coverage of the OJ Simpson trial for all ABC News magazine shows; Primetime Live, 20/20, Turning Point and Day One. She later worked as senior producer pf Primetime Live. During her tenure she produced; Murder in Beverly Hills which was presented by Diane Sawyer and won an Emmy award, the story of the Menendez brothers. She also produced a series of pentagon exposes with Sam Donaldson which lead to the resignation of the Secretary of the Navy, change in the Navy policy for reporting rape, the institution of the first anti-hazing policy in the Marine Corps and the closure of the Bermuda Naval Air Station.
In January 1999 she became the Executive Producer of Good Morning America. She helped add nearly a million viewers and boosted GMA’s income revenue from $19m to nearly $100M annually. From May 2004 to September 2005 she was the Executive Producer of PrimeTime Live. She served as ABC News producer for 16 years before becoming the Executive Producer of Creative Development for ABC Networks.
In September 2007 she joined CBS News as the Senior Executive Producer for The Early Show until March 2008.
Shelley Ross Now
Ross is the President of The Cure Alliance, a non-profit group of over 300 elite scientists, researchers, medical doctors and innovators, plus those who support their efforts to end suffering by developing cures for chronic, debilitating and fatal diseases.
Shelley Ross Chris Cuomo
In a New York Times article, Shelley accused Chris Cuomo was sexually harassing her in 2005 at a going-away party for an ABC colleague. At the time she was the executive producer of an ABC entertainment special, but she was Cuomo’s executive producer at “Primetime Live” just before that.
She wrote she attended the party with her husband who sat behind her while she spoke with her work friends. She alleges that Cuomo entered the Upper West Side bar and walked towards her and greeted her with a strong bear hug lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of her buttock.
“‘I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,’ he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. ‘No you can’t,’ I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband, who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.”
She added that Cuomo later sent her an email apologizing for his action. “Soon after, I received the email from Mr. Cuomo about being “ashamed.” He should have been. But my question today is the same as it was then: Was he ashamed of what he did, or was he embarrassed because my husband saw it? (He apologized first in his email to my “very good and noble husband” and then to me for “even putting you in such a position.”) Mr. Cuomo may say this is a sincere apology. I’ve always seen it as an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability.”
Shelley has also added that she never thought Cuomo’s behavior was sexual in nature. “I never thought that Mr. Cuomo’s behavior was sexual in nature. Whether he understood it at the time or not, his form of sexual harassment was a hostile act meant to diminish and belittle his female former boss in front of the staff.”
She also said she has no grudge against him and wasn’t looking for him to lose his job but rather take it as an opportunity for him and his employer to show what accountability can look like in the MeToo era.
At the beginning of the essay she says she has watched Chris Cuomo escape accountability for advising former Gov. Andrew Cuomo during his sexual harassment scandal. Chris Cuomo was listed as one of the advisers who helped guide Governor Cuomo through the political and legal crisis. The Washington Post reported that Chris Cuomo advised his brother to take a defiant position early in the scandal and not resign.
“We all know that Mr. Cuomo was being consulted by his brother; what has never come to light, and what Mr. Cuomo has not been held to account for, is the full scope of the advice he gave his brother and whether his advice and his role in helping shape the defense of a sitting governor (one who was being investigated by Mr. Cuomo’s own network) were in keeping with CNN’s standards and values. ”
Shelley Ross Sexual Harassment
Shelley says she has fought sexual harassment in the workplace for 40 years. She wrote that in 1981 “Roger Ailes insisted to me that we have a “sexual alliance” or my pending job offer at NBC’s “Tomorrow” show would be withdrawn.”
She says she called a lawyer and worried it might be the end of her budding television career. To her surprise, Mr. Ailes never denied it. He apologized profusely for what he called “middle age craziness” and persuaded her to accept the job, promising they would never have another problem.
She alleges that she accepted naïvely thinking I could help reform the workplace one predator at a time. She added that decades later she still needs to explain the many faces of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Shelley Ross Net worth
She has an estimated net worth of $3 million.