Woody Allen · Dan Abrams · Chris Cuomo
If you're looking for problematic men, today's your lucky day!
the true crime that's worth your time
…and if a slew of problematic men are more than you can take, feel free to stash this one for later. Because today’s issue is a frustrating mix of folks who don’t seem to know when to show themselves out. And some days you just don’t need to hear about that. — EB
Chris Cuomo is plotting a comeback. The disgraced journalist was fired from CNN in March for violations of journalistic ethics after he allegedly leveraged his influence to assist his brother, disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, after the latter was hit with multiple allegations of sexual harassment.
A day or so later, Chris faced sexual harassment allegations of his own (both brothers deny the claims against them); he’s since filed a $125 million suit against CNN over his firing, claiming that he is “now untouchable in the world of broadcast journalism.”
It’s an edgy call, using “untouchable” within the context of sexual harassment, even if the intention is just to culturally appropriate a Hindu concept. But whatever the case, Chris Cuomo appears to believe that he is again touchable, by folks like Sean Penn and Dan Abrams.
Let’s start with Abrams, who is telling everyone who will listen that he’s the only interviewer Chris Cuomo has agreed to speak with since his firing. The interview will run on Dan Abrams Live (it’s on a channel called NewsNation) tonight at 9 ET. Who knows, perhaps Abrams will surprise us and offer up a hard-hitting, unrelenting interrogation of Cuomo? I mean, it’s 2022, anything is possible. That said, my breath is certainly not held.
Meanwhile, Cuomo has just launched a podcast (this is likely why he’s doing the interview, to drum up interest in the show). It’s called The Chris Cuomo Project, and its unclear from its Apple Podcasts page if it’s the product of a known podcast production company. I’m not interested in listening to find out, either.
Hollywood Reporter staffer Alex Weprin listened so we don’t have to, and writes that guests on the pod’s first (and so far, only) episode include Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, and actor Sean Penn, who himself has faced numerous allegations of violence and abuse, a matter The Daily Beast covered quite thoroughly in a 2015 piece headlined “Sean Penn’s Horrifying History of Alleged Abuse.”
So Penn is certainly an interesting choice for a journalist eager to rehabilitate his image and career. Per Weprin, Cuomo also defended his efforts to help his brother:
For me, the past is the past, and there is no benefit to you if I relitigate what was said and done involving my brother,” he said. “And there are some outstanding legal fights that I have to respect, but let me be clear: I do regret how everything ended, but I will never regret helping my family. I promised my father that I always would be there for my brother, and I always will be, just like he has always been there for me, just like my sisters have been there for me, and have been there for him. That’s family.
That statement, too, is an interesting choice! But now we know where he stands, I guess. — EB
Speaking of Abrams…(Who, once again, just might surprise us tonight! Who knows?) The premiere of his reboot of Live PD, now called On Patrol: Live, had technical issues that delayed it by over an hour, cable channel Reelz announced via Twitter.
Variety reports that A&E’s live copaganda ride-along show, which had been canceled in the wake of the social justice protests in 2020 but was revived on Reelz as, per Abrams, the “environment has changed”…
was set to premiere at 9 pm ET, [but viewers] were met with a black screen for several minutes. Commercials then started looping for Reelz programming, including an upcoming documentary about the band Kiss, followed by two nearly full reruns of “Jail: Las Vegas.”
Meanwhile, host and executive producer Dan Abrams, who was still shooting the show as if it was being broadcast, tweeted at 9:23, “We are shooting live but Based on the #OPNation technical issues I’m told the show will air from the beginning. Believe me we are frustrated. Sorry!” Once the technical issues were sorted out, he tweeted again, writing, “Ok so bad news we had nothing on air for 75 minutes or so, the good news is I’m told the show will be played in its entirety and commercial free! Thank you for staying with us. Now let’s keep #OPLive #OnPatrolLive trending (but not for the technical disaster!).”
The show made it onto the air at 10:11 PM, and the second episode, scheduled for the next night, went off without a hitch. What this means regarding a possible message from the universe/your higher power (should you have one) remains to be seen. — EB
The other items in this issue of Best Evidence prompted me to seek out coverage of Alec Baldwin’s recent interview with Woody Allen. Does that make me a masochist? Perhaps! This was an Instagram Live conversation that went down late last month, and it, too, was intended promotionally: Allen has a recently-published essay collection called Zero Gravity that he’s pushing, published by a company that Vanity Fair once referred to as a “House of Horrors” over its “history of workplace toxicity and inappropriate behavior.”
Salon’s Alison Stine has a delightfully written takedown of the conversation between the two men, both of whom have been on the wrong end of the law (Baldwin for a multitude of incidents; Allen for his alleged molestation of daughter Dylan Farrow). From Stine’s report:
The first chunk of the interview is taken up by technical difficulties. The men do not seem to understand the video is live. Allen complains about a delay and does not know how to adjust the camera so more of his face can be seen. At one point, dogs begin barking on Baldwin's end, and he leaps up to yell at an apparent staff member in bad Spanish.
The tech glitches inspire the men to talk at length about how they hate social media (even though the video is airing on social media) with Baldwin saying young people have turned into zombies and worship screens like monkeys in "2001: A Space Odyssey." Allen says about his Facebook page: "Someone else handles that for me." "I've never been interested in gadgetry, cameras," says the director who, one presumes, has used a camera.
…
The production value on the interview is predictably bad. Baldwin is wearing a visor, like he just came in from golfing, and sits before a cluttered mantle Room Rater would not score highly. Allen looks like he's in a haunted inn in Westchester. There is a lot of freezing, lost video. Baldwin criticizes Allen's wi-fi situation. Who greenlit this? Anyone? Or, is this a case of a quasi-canceled man wanting to give airtime to another?
Oddly, Roger Friedman Hollywood 411 claims via headline that “Woody Allen Book Sales Jump After Alec Baldwin Interview,” but the former Fox News fixture offers no evidence of that in his post. Again, I’ll just leave that as an “interesting choice!” — EB
In conclusion, if I had to choose the themes of the day, I guess they’d be 1) Allegedly bad men stick together, 2) A lot of interviews are bullshit and 3) Technical difficulties just might be the last thing standing between us and chaos. If you have anything to add, we’d love to hear it, as always.
Wednesday on Best Evidence: More on interviews, this time less wishy-washy ones.
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