Facebook/Phyllis Golden Gottlieb Phyllis Golden Gottlieb
As CBS works out a deal to let Les Moonves depart his company with a reported $100 million gilded landing, more women have come forward to accuse him of sex crimes that dates back decades. According to another bombshell report from investigative journalist Ronan Farrow, six more women have alleged Moonves sexually harassed or assaulted them beginning in the 1980s.
Farrow’s report in The New Yorker reads that women claim “Moonves forced them to perform oral sex on him, that he exposed himself to them without their consent, and that he used physical violence and intimidation against them. A number of the women also said that Moonves retaliated after they rebuffed him, damaging their careers.”
One of the women is Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, now 82.
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Golden-Gottlieb, a TV Industry Veteran, Claims Moonves Sexually Assaulted Her in 1986
Now 82 and looking far younger, in this photo from 2013, when she was 77, Gottlieb was described by family and friends as “just beautiful,” and “striking” with “good genes.”
She worked with Moonves at TV studio Lorimar in the 1980s. She by then had already had an impressive TV career as she shows on her Facebook; proud of her time with Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group. She also held executive posts at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and at NBC.
In 1986, Moonves was in charge of TV movies at Lorimar and Golden-Gottlieb was in charge of developing sitcoms. She told the magazine that Moonves invited her to lunch to talk business but instead took her on a drive to an out-of-the-way area and forced her to perform oral sex.
The account she provided to The New Yorker is graphic: she claims he “grabbed my head and he took it all the way down onto his penis, and pushed his penis into my mouth,” and held her head there and “…came very quickly.” She said she was “numb” and uncertain about what to do but did demand he drive her back to Lorimar. She told the magazine she was distraught and threw-up when she got back to work: ““It was just sick.” She told Farrow that “she didn’t report the incident at the time because she was a single mother supporting two children and feared for her career.” She said Moonves was “the new golden boy” and while she “kept quiet” the sexual assault she alleges occurred has “never left me.”
2. Other Incidents With Moonves Include One Where he Met Her in His Office Sans Pants & With an Erection. She Wrote About That & Other Encounters
Gottlieb told The New Yorker that Moonves was promoted at Lorimar adding she “avoided being alone” with him “whenever possible in the period after the first assault.”
Gottlieb said that two years after the first assault, it’s now 1988, she was called to Moonves’ office. He left the room for a bit and returned “not wearing pants, and was aroused.” She ran out of the room.
The following day, he retaliated it was reported: “…Moonves approached her in her office and berated her for not sending a memo to another executive.”
Gottlieb said when she spoke back he pulled her from her desk and threw her against the wall. She told the magazine she laid on the floor crying unable to get up.
In her blog she began writing after she left TV, she mentions both incidents saying she had to withstand sexual harassment and assault and threats: “…The president of a studio I worked for picked me up and threw me against the wall for failing to include a favorite of his on a memo — and I didn’t cry. A network department head threatened to throw me out the window for making a decision when he was out of town — and I didn’t cry. Another studio head joined me at a meeting to share good news — without his pants “
3. The #MeToo Movement ‘Gave Me Courage’ to Come Forward & Report Moonves to Authorities, She Said
Golden-Gottlieb said there was retribution for her rebuking of Moonves. She claims he moved her into smaller offices: “Every two days, he’d find a darker space, or a place downstairs, or something.” And, she said, her industry career was hurt. Worse, it was “ruined” she told Farrow.
“He was the head of CBS. No one was going to take me,” she’s quoted as saying.
Golden-Gottlieb told The New Yorker “she is still frightened of Moonves” but decided to come forward. She’s quoted as saying the #MeToo movement gave her “… courage. I saw everyone coming out; I had to.”
So she filed a police report on the forced oral sex incident that police found credible.
4. Moonves Knew She Filed a Complaint With Police & Didn’t Tell the CBS Board. He’s Denied the ‘Appalling Accusations’
Protesters park a billboard truck outside the Beverly Hilton Hotel with the message urging the CBS Television Network to fire it’s chief executive, Leslie Moonves, after alleged accusations by six women, including actress Illeana Douglas, that Moonves sexually harassesed them between the 1980’s and 2006, in Beverly Hills, California on August 5, 2018. – CBS executives were holding a meeting inside the hotel to discuss future programming.
Farrow reported that Moonves knew she filed a complaint in the fall of 2017 and told no one for “several months” and when he did inform a “a number of CBS board members,” he was “allowed to continue running the company.”
Golden-Gottlieb told Farrow: “They don’t care about me. I can’t do anything for them. The whole world is only about money, nothing else.”
Meanwhile, Moonves issued a statement to The New Yorker.
“The appalling accusations in this article are untrue. What is true is that I had consensual relations with three of the women some 25 years ago before I came to CBS. And I have never used my position to hinder the advancement or careers of women. In my 40 years of work, I have never before heard of such disturbing accusations. I can only surmise they are surfacing now for the first time, decades later, as part of a concerted effort by others to destroy my name, my reputation, and my career. Anyone who knows me knows that the person described in this article is not me.”
5. Golden-Gottlieb Left TV & Began Working as a Teacher in LA & Has Been an Education Advocate & Activist. She Attended the Women’s’ March in 2017 at Age 81
“A television producer quits the Hollywood scene to teach elementary school in inner city Los Angeles. These are her stories,” her blog ‘Inner City Blues’ reads.
Golden-Gottlieb left TV and went to work as a teacher in Los Angeles working with special education, under-served and at-risk kids. She documented some of her experiences in her blog.
In the post, ‘Tears for the Teacher,” she wrote, “As an executive in the entertainment industry in the days when women were few and not particularly endeared by the powerful, I learned to be strong and tough.
“The president of a studio I worked for picked me up and threw me against the wall for failing to include a favorite of his on a memo — and I didn’t cry. A network department head threatened to throw me out the window for making a decision when he was out of town — and I didn’t cry. Another studio head joined me at a meeting to share good news — without his pants — and I didn’t cry. But I was reduced to tears by a class of five-year-old kindergartners.”
READ NEXT: Moonves to Step Down