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Prince Harry says ‘heinous, horrible’ stories have been ‘spoon-fed’ to press from the palace

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CNN
 — 

Prince Harry told CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday he hasn’t spoken with his brother, Prince William, for “a while,” in the second of two major interviews ahead of the publication of his memoir, “Spare,” on Monday.

The Duke of Sussex told Anderson Cooper he doesn’t “currently” speak with the Prince of Wales, “but I look forward to us being able to find peace,” he said. It follows an interview with ITV’s Tom Bradby, ahead of what is likely to be an explosive week for the British royals with the release of Harry’s memoir.

Prince Harry also told Cooper that he hasn’t spoken to his father, King Charles III, in “quite a while,” adding the “ball is very much in their court” when asked about the possibility of the family reconciling after Harry’s highly publicized disclosures.

Buckingham Palace has repeatedly declined to comment on the contents of Prince Harry’s forthcoming memoir, which has been the subject of leaks since last week detailing some of his most controversial claims. CNN has not seen a copy of the book but has requested an advance copy from the publisher Penguin Random House.

His most recent interviews cover a wide range of topics from the death of his mother, the Princess of Wales, his frustration towards the British press, the treatment of his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and the subsequent fallout with his family since his marriage.

The interviews set the stage for the string of revelations that are expected to be made public Monday, as Prince Harry continues to push back against what he refers to as “the institution,” offering a revealing look inside the estranged family.

Despite the fractured relationship between the two brothers, Prince Harry told Cooper he loved William “deeply.”

“My brother and I love each other. I love him deeply,” the Duke of Sussex said. “There has been a lot of pain between the two of us, especially the last six years.”

He added that nothing he has written is “ever intended to hurt my family.”

“But it does give a full picture of the situation as we were growing up, and also squashes this idea that somehow my wife was the one that destroyed the relationship between these two brothers,” Prince Harry said.

The book’s title of “Spare” is a reference to an “heir and a spare,” a saying in the United Kingdom that refers to the need to have a child to inherit an aristocratic title. Harry was next in line to the British throne after William until William’s children were born – now he’s fifth in the line of succession.

The strained relationship between the brothers has been a common theme in leaked excerpts from the book and Harry’s media interviews, which revealed deep divisions between the siblings.

Perhaps the most incendiary revelation to emerge was Prince Harry’s claim of a scuffle with the Prince of Wales during an argument over his wife in 2019, as he described while reading in an excerpt of his memoir on ITV on Sunday.

Prince Harry said his brother never tried to dissuade him from marrying Meghan, but expressed some concerns and told him, “‘This is going be really hard for you,’” Prince Harry recalled during his interview with Bradby.

“I still to this day don’t truly understand which part of what he was talking about,” Prince Harry continued. “Maybe he predicted what the British press’s reaction was going to be.”

In the interview and in excerpts from his memoir shared by ITV, the Duke of Sussex addressed how strife in his family has been fueled by the relationship between Buckingham Palace and media outlets.

“We’re not just talking about family relationships, we’re talking about an antagonist, which is the British press, specifically the tabloids who want to create as much conflict as possible,” Prince Harry told Bradby. “The saddest part of that is certain members of my family and the people that work for them are complicit in that conflict.”

He also stated that the “leaking” and “planting” of “a royal source” to the press “is not an unknown person, it is the palace specifically briefing the press, but covering their tracks by being unnamed.”

Prince Harry added that he thinks “that’s pretty shocking to people. Especially when you realize how many palace sources, palace insiders, senior palace officials, how many quotes are being attributed to those people, some of the most heinous, horrible things have been said about me and my wife, completely condoned by the palace because it’s coming from the palace, and those journalists have literally been spoon-fed that narrative without ever coming to us, without ever seeing or questioning the other side.”

Prince Harry echoed those sentiments with CBS’ Cooper, adding even at the young age of 12, he felt resentment toward the British media.

“It was obvious to us as kids the British press’ part in our mother’s misery and I had a lot of anger inside of me that luckily, I never expressed to anybody,” he said. “But I resorted to drinking heavily. Because I wanted to numb the feeling, or I wanted to distract myself from how … whatever I was thinking. And I would, you know, resort to drugs as well.”

In both interviews, Prince Harry spoke about how his mother was hunted by paparazzi, recalling the traumatic night his father told him Princess Diana had died from injuries sustained in a car crash.

“I really think about how many hours he’d been awake. And the compassion that I have for him, as a parent having to sit with that for many, many hours, ringing up friends of his, trying to work out, how the hell do I break this to my two sons?”

Harry said he never wants to find himself having to do the same.

“I don’t want history to repeat itself. I do not want to be a single dad. And I certainly don’t want my children to have a life without a mother or a father,” Prince Harry told ITV’s Bradby.

Diana was killed in 1997, when the car she was traveling in crashed inside a Paris tunnel. Prince Harry was 12 years old at the time. He told Cooper his memories of the days that followed are blurry, but recalls seeing the throng of people outside Buckingham Palace who came to offer their condolences.

“I think it’s bizarre, because I see William and me smiling,” he said. “I remember the guilt that I felt … The fact that the people that we were meeting were showing more emotion than we were showing, maybe more emotion than we even felt.”

Prince Harry told Cooper he “refused to accept she was gone” and for “may years” believed she had decided to disappear.

The Duke of Sussex said he only cried once his mother’s coffin went into the ground. “That was the first time that I actually cried… there was never another time,” he said.

Prince Harry also recalled the events around the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8 at Balmoral Castle. The duke was at a charity event in London when the palace announced that the queen was under medical supervision.

“I asked my brother – I said, “What are your plans? How are you and Kate getting up there?” And then, a couple of hours later… all of the family members that live within the Windsor and Ascot area were jumping on a plane together, a plane with 12, 14, maybe 16 seats,” he said. “I was not invited.”

He recalled spending time with the Queen in her bedroom after she had died.

“I was really happy for her. Because she’d finished life. She’d completed life, and her husband was waiting for her. And the two of them are buried together,” Prince Harry said.

The Duke of Sussex also told ITV’s Bradby about his decision to write the book, saying, “38 years of having my story told by so many different people, with intentional spin and distortion felt like a good time to tell own my story and be able to tell it for myself. I’m actually really grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to tell my story because it’s my story to tell.”

Prince Harry pointed out that he has tried over the last six years to resolve his concerns with his family privately.

“It never needed to get to this point. I have had conversations, I have written letters, I have written emails, and everything is just, ‘No, you, this is not what’s happening. You, you are imagining it,’” he said. “That’s really hard to take. And if it had stopped, by the point that I fled my home country with my wife and my son fearing for our lives, then maybe this would have turned out differently. It’s hard.”

The duke said he wants “reconciliation but first there needs to be some accountability,” with respect to his family.

Prince Harry has previously blamed the constant media intrusion as a critical stressor for him and his wife that ultimately led to their decision to step down as working members of the Royal Family in 2021.

In a six-part Netflix documentary released last month, the couple said press attacks, the lack of action from the palace to prevent them and the couple’s increasing suspicions that the royal household was actually feeding the media pushed Meghan to a dark place.

“You can’t just continue to say to me that I’m delusional and paranoid when all the evidence is stacked up, because I was genuinely terrified about what is going to happen to me,” Prince Harry told ITV’s Bradby.

“And then we have a 12-month transition period and everyone doubles down. My wife shares her experience. And instead of backing off, both the institution and the tabloid media in the UK, both doubled down,” he added.

Still, the duke said, “forgiveness is 100% a possibility.”

“There’s probably a lot of people who, after watching the documentary and reading the book, will go, how could you ever forgive your family for what they have done? People have already said that to me. And I said forgiveness is 100% a possibility because I would like to get my father back. I would like to have my brother back. At the moment, I don’t recognize them, as much as they probably don’t recognize me,” Prince Harry said.

On Monday, the duke’s interview with “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan will air on the ABC show, followed in the evening by a half-hour special on ABC News Live. And to top things off, the duke will make an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” hours after his book is released on Tuesday.

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World

Prince Harry launches blistering attack on Camilla, branding her ‘dangerous’ in 60 Minutes interview

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Prince Harry today launched another extraordinary attack on King Charles’ wife Camilla, branding her ‘dangerous’ and a ‘villain’, as he continued his publicity book for his explosive memoir Spare. 

The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex to aim at the Queen Consort while speaking with CBS News’ 60 Minutes host Anderson Cooper, who questioned Harry about several very damaging allegations he made about Camilla in the book’s pages. 

Referring back to a 1995 interview in which his mother, Princess Diana, famously referred to Camilla as the ‘third person in her marriage’, Harry says that this admission turned the now-Queen Consort into a ‘villain’, adding: ‘She needed to rehabilitate her image.’ 

According to Harry – who also reveals in his book that he and William ‘begged’ their father not to marry Camilla – this desire to transform her public image made her ‘dangerous’. 

He accuses his step-mother of ‘trading information’ with the press in an attempt to get more positive stories written about herself, before sensationally suggesting that her ‘connections’ with the media would end up with ‘people or bodies left in the street’. 

Prince Harry has launched another round of sensational attacks on King Charles’ wife Camilla in a new TV interview to promote his explosive memoir Spare 

While speaking to CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Harry, 38, branded his stepmother ‘dangerous’ and called her a ‘villain’ 

The Duke claimed that Camilla forged ‘connections’ with the press in the UK in order to try and ‘rehabilitate her image’ and get ‘positive stories’ written about her 

‘[Her need to rehabilitate her image] made her dangerous because of the connections that she that she was forging within the British press,’ he told Cooper, according to an official transcript of the interview – which DailyMail.com received before the interview began airing. 

‘And there was open willingness on both sides to trade of information. And with a family built on hierarchy, and with her, on the way to being Queen Consort, there was gonna be people or bodies left in the street because of that.’

Princess Diana’s interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir in 1995 marked the first time that she had publicly addressed claims that Charles and Camilla had an affair during her marriage to the then-Prince of Wales. 

At the time, she sensationally told Bashir: ‘There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.’ 

As the Duke once again blasts his closest family members in the 60 Minutes – just over one hour after his sit-down with British TV host Tom Bradby finished airing – interview, DailyMail.com can reveal he also: 

  • Claims he was ‘not invited’ on the plane that his family took up to Balmoral upon learning that the Queen was unwell 
  • Admits that he used to look at videos of his mother, Diana, and ‘go over memories of her’ in an attempt to make himself cry 
  • Says his brother, Prince William, initially refused to believe that Diana was really dead and that they both believed she ‘would call us and we would go and join her’
  • Reveals he took psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca and psilocybin as ‘experimental treatments’ and says they ‘cleared the… misery of loss’ for him 
  • Believes that psychedelics can ‘work as a medicine’ for those who are ‘suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief, or trauma’
  • Suggests he and Meghan will never renounce their titles because ‘what difference would it make’
  • Defends his decision to air his grievances against his family so publicly, suggesting public attacks are the only ‘language that perhaps they understand’
  • Admits that he has not spoken to his brother or his father ‘in a while’ 

Princess Diana’s interview with the BBC’s Martin Bashir in 1995 marked the first time that she publicly addressed claims that Charles and Camilla had an affair during her marriage

His latest attack on Camilla comes after he revealed in his book, Spare, that he and William ‘begged’ Charles not to marry her 

Harry also claims that what he saw as Camilla’s desire to ‘be on the front page [and] have positive stories written about [her]’ came from his family’s belief that positive media coverage would ‘improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public’. 

‘If you are led to believe, as a member of the family, that being on the front page, having positive headlines, positive stories written about you, is going to improve your reputation or increase the chances of you being accepted as monarch by the British public, then that’s what you’re gonna do,’ he adds. 

The Duke’s sensational public attack on Camilla is the latest in a line of barbs that he has flung at his stepmother – having already painted what Cooper describes as a very ‘unflattering portrayal’ of her in his explosive memoir Spare, which was accidentally released in Spain last week.

In the book, Harry makes similar accusations against Camilla in regard to her so-called ‘connections’ with the press, accusing her of leaking information to the media as part of a ‘campaign’ to take the Crown.

In an extraordinary passage in his autobiography, the Duke of Sussex writes: ‘Shortly after our private meetings with her, she began to develop her long-term strategy, a campaign directed at marriage and with time, the Crown (with the blessing of our father, we supposed). 

‘News stories started appearing in all the newspapers about her conversations with Willy, stories which recounted lots of small details, none of which came from my brother, of course.’ 

The Duke also claims that he and his brother William ‘begged’ the then-Prince of Wales not to remarry after Princess Diana’s death, fearing that she would be their ‘wicked stepmother’.

During his 60 Minutes interview, Harry said that both he and William didn’t think it was ‘necessary’ for Charles to wed Camilla, telling Cooper: ‘We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought that it was gonna cause more harm than good and that if he was now with his person, that– surely that’s enough. Why go that far when you don’t necessarily need to? 

‘We wanted him to be happy. And we saw how happy he was with her. So, at the time, it was, “Okay.”‘

Charles had tried to win over his sons before asking the public to accept Camilla, the book claims. Harry then astonishingly says that meeting the future Queen Consort for the first time was like an ‘injection’. He later says that ultimately he and William approved of Camilla.

He writes: ‘I remember wondering… if she would be cruel to me; if she would be like all the wicked stepmothers in the stories.’

Prince Harry says taking psychedelic DRUGS helped him deal with the ‘grief’ and ‘trauma’ of Princess Diana’s death 

Prince Harry credited the use of psychedelic drugs with helping him deal with the ‘grief’ and ‘trauma’ he felt after the tragic death of his mom, Princess Diana. 

The Duke of Sussex, 38, called psychedelics like ayahuasca and magic mushrooms his ‘medicine’ after the huge ‘loss’ of his mother in 1997.

While Harry was only 12 when Diana tragically died in a car accident, he admitted in his upcoming book, Spare, that he struggled to come to grips with her sudden passing.

Now he has shared more details about his mother’s death, explaining that he only cried once over his mother’s death – when her coffin was put in the ground – and that he was plagued with guilt over feeling like he was not being emotional enough over her passing for years. 

But the former royal said using psychedelics when he got older ultimately ‘cleared away the idea’ that he needed be sad to prove he ‘missed’ his mom. 

‘I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,’ he said during the one-hour tell-all interview. 

‘But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.

‘For me, they cleared the windscreen, the windshield, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that … I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her. When in fact, all she wanted was for me to be happy.’

Prince Harry reveals he used to watch videos of his mother Princess Diana online in a desperate attempt to CRY about her death

Prince Harry has candidly admitted that he used to watch videos of his late mother Princess Diana and ‘muster up memories of her’ in an attempt to cry over her death. 

The 38-year-old revealed his ‘guilt’ at not being able to shed a tear about Diana’s tragic passing in 1997. 

‘There was this weight on my chest that I felt for so many years that I was never able to cry,’ he told host Anderson Cooper, according to a transcript of the interview that DailyMail.com received ahead of the pre-taped interview’s release. 

‘So I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, but… in even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum. And sometimes I watched videos online.’

However, Harry says that, no matter how hard he tried, he ‘couldn’t’ shed a tear – something that filled him with ‘guilt’ for years. 

Harry explained during the sit down that he believes he didn’t cry over Diana’s death because he had ‘refused to accept that she was gone.’ 

He added that there was a huge ‘weight on his chest’ that he ‘felt for so many years’ over not shedding more tears – and that he even tried watching videos of her to bring forth his emotions. 

‘I was constantly trying to find a way to cry, even sitting on my sofa and going over as many memories as I could muster up about my mum,’ he added. ‘And sometimes I watched videos online.’

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Entertainment

Ryan Seacrest supports CNN limiting Andy Cohen’s NYE drinking

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Ryan Seacrest voice his support for CNN’s decision to limit Andy Cohen’s drinking on New Year’s Eve — one year after the Bravo star referred to Seacrest’s performers as “a group of losers.”

“I don’t advocate drinking when one is on the air,” the longtime host of ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” told Entertainment Weekly Monday.

“I don’t know how that started as a tradition, but it’s probably a good idea [to scale back], CNN.”

Each year, Cohen and his best friend Anderson Cooper team up and imbibe throughout the evening’s celebrations, which ultimately take a hilarious turn when Cohen gets drunk enough to insult high-ranking officials such as former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Ryan Seacrest voiced his support for CNN’s limit of on-air drinking on New Year’s Eve.
ABC via Getty Images
CNN’s New Year’s co-host Andy Cohen issued an apology last year after he referred to Seacrest’s performers as a “group of losers.”
CNN
CNN’s New Year’s co-host Andy Cohen issued an apology last year after he referred to Seacrest’s performers as a “group of losers.”
CNN


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“There’s some pretty respectable people or at least one, right?” Seacrest, 48, joked about the hosts of CNN’s “New Year’s Eve Live.”

“I think there’s a serious journalist and then a friend of mine who has a lot of fun, but it’s probably a good idea.”

Seacrest is the longtime host of ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.”
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Seacrest blamed Cohen’s insults last year, of which he was a victim, on the alcohol.

“[I don’t] think they would say what they said about our performers if they weren’t drinking,” he explained.

Cohen will return to CNN this year to co-host with Anderson Cooper.
Getty Images for SiriusXM

When Cohen, 54, emerged from what must have been a severe hangover at the top of 2022, he issued a mea culpa to Seacrest and the ABC staff.

“The only thing that I regret saying, the only thing is that I slammed the ABC broadcast, and I really like Ryan Seacrest, and he’s a great guy,” Cohen said of Seacrest’s production.

“And I really regret saying that, and I was just stupid and drunk and feeling it.”

He added, “I just kept talking, and I shouldn’t have, and I felt bad about that. So that is the only thing [I regret]. It’s the only thing.”

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Entertainment

William Shatner’s Space Interview With CNN’s Anderson Cooper Takes A Filthy Turn

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Cooper repeatedly cracked up as Shatner, 90, peppered their conversation about his seat on the next mission from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin with jokes and sarcastic zingers.

Shatner, aka Captain Kirk on “Star Trek,” joked about being “ravaged by time,” ribbed Cooper about the sci-fi show being “all pretend” and busted out some innuendoes about the phallic shape of the Blue Origin rocket.

“We’re inseminating the space program,” Shatner quipped. “It certainly does look … when they say insertion, do they really mean insertion?”

Shatner talked about pressing his nose “against the plastic window” on the flight, saying he didn’t want to see “somebody else out there looking back at me.”

And when asked about his training, Shatner deadpanned that he was “running miles and miles” and “taking deep breaths, the best training is to fill my lungs and let the air go out.”

Watch the full interview here:

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Entertainment

Season 1, Episode 1, “War”

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Jon Stewart
Photo: Apple TV+

If you were to ask any major talk show host during the mid-1990s who their single biggest influence was, they would likely say one name: Johnny Carson. A decade later, it was probably David Letterman. However, today that name is very likely Jon Stewart, whose 16-year run on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show took the superficial format of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” and elevated it beyond simple fake news and pop culture references.

Four nights a week, Stewart delivered incisive satirical commentary about the very real political issues impacting the world. Four former Daily Show correspondents now host their own talk shows that each bear Stewart’s mark in some way: Stephen Colbert (The Late Show), John Oliver (Last Week Tonight), Samantha Bee (Full Frontal), and his eventual Daily Show successor Trevor Noah. Former Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac hosted Problem Areas in 2018 (Stewart has acknowledged the similarity in titles).

That’s a tremendous legacy on its own, but it doesn’t end there: Seth Meyers (Late Night) might’ve hosted Weekend Update for years, but his regular “Closer Look” segments are more like The Daily Show than Letterman’s old Viewer Mail bits.

Stewart left The Daily Show in 2015 at the top of his game. Now, he’s returned with a new Apple TV+ series, which premieres September 30. The open credits cycle through several potential titles (The Money Grab With Jon Stewart, The Monthly Show With Jon Stewart, The Trouble With Jon Stewart) before settling on The Problem With Jon Stewart, but the cold open makes it clear there’s no actual confusion about the show Stewart wants to create.

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Seated at a table during a producers meeting, Stewart explicitly lays out the format—monologue that introduces this week’s “problem,” then an interview segment devoted to those the problem directly impacts, followed by an interview with someone important who could possibly help.

The intro also reveals the faces of the people working with Stewart, and it’s a sharp contrast to his notoriously white male staff on The Daily Show, which he said he regretted in an interview last year on The Breakfast Club. Stewart has made good on what he described as an obligation to “actively dismantle” a discriminatory system. The show’s head writer, Chelsea Devantez, is a woman, and the executive producer, Brinda Adhikari, is a woman of color. And she’s not alone! This is a refreshing change.

In his last episode on The Daily Show, Stewart declared the world “demonstrably worse than when I started this!” This wasn’t entirely hyperbole or (in my case) Gen-X nostalgia speaking. Stewart took over from original host Craig Kilborn in 1999. Bill Clinton was still in office, and the Supreme Court hadn’t yet installed George W. Bush in the White House. Then came 9/11 and the Iraq War. Donald Trump wasn’t yet president when Stewart quit, but he was no longer the obvious punchline Stewart had assumed when he’d walked down that escalator in June 2015.

Stewart told Charlie Rose in 1997 that the key to his comedy was recognizing life’s absurdities. But the Trump era, arguably still ongoing, wasn’t simply absurd. It was devastatingly real. Stewart admirably doesn’t try to return to a simpler milieu. He seems focused on making the change he wants to see in the world.

That said, the first “problem” Stewart tackles is familiar terrain—the country’s shoddy treatment of its military veterans. Stewart has advocated on behalf of 9/11 first responders, who suffered from the long-term effects of a terrorist attack, but these Iraq War veterans are victims of not-so-friendly fire. They were exposed to toxic fumes from what’s known as “burn pits,” where U.S. military contractors dumped trash and set it aflame with jet fuel. “Trash” is too benign a word. The pits contained piles of human feces and random body parts. There are veterans still dying from cancer, but the government would prefer to bury them as well, claiming that there’s no proven link between otherwise healthy young men who now struggle to breathe or have been driven to attempted suicide from their chronic pain.

This isn’t funny material, obviously, but Stewart is too personally invested to make the first segment’s few jokes land. Here, the show does not quite meet the standard set by John Oliver’s deep dives on a topic that are informative yet never less than hilarious. Amber Ruffin is also able to deliver “Schoolhouse Rock”-style studies on racism that still manage to leave you laughing. Stewart struggles with this balance to the extent he actually tries (the few overt efforts fall flat).

The Problem With Jon Stewart is ultimately more advocacy than activism, and while that’s consistent with Stewart’s past work, it lacks bite. Our current political climate is so absurd that even actual news anchors, such as MSNBC’s Brian Williams and CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, frequently have satirical segments where they perform more like Stewart than the stiff, buttoned-up Walter Cronkite wannabes parodied on “Weekend Update” and the original Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. They exist in a post-Stewart reality. The challenge for Stewart is whether he can truly thrive in the world he’s created.

Stray observations

  • The interview segments were never my favorite part of Stewart’s Daily Show. This episode’s interview with Denis R. McDonough is awkward, and unfortunately, McDonough, who seems well-meaning, comes off like Martin Short’s shady businessman in a 60 Minutes spoof on Saturday Night Live. That was funny, of course. This isn’t.
  • It seems even more impressive now that John Oliver can keep my attention on a single subject for 30 minutes.
  • I know it seems like an odd criticism given The Daily Show format, but Stewart could really use someone to banter with on the show.

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Entertainment

Jeopardy!’s Mike Richards Gets Babysitter Instead Of Being Fired

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Photo: Kevin Winters (Getty Images)

Mike Richards, the Jeopardy! executive producer who gave himself a high-profile hosting gig and then immediately lost it once everyone realized he was a jerk, will remain on as the game show’s boss, The New York Times reports. Many observers expected Richards to hammer out an exit deal with Jeopardy!’s production company, Sony Pictures Television.

Jeopardy! has been in need of a host for nearly a year, following the tragic death of beloved host Alex Trebek, who passed away last November due to complications with pancreatic cancer. Executives tried out a variety of A-list guest hosts, including actor Levar Burton, railroad empire heir Anderson Cooper, and Jeopardy! hall-of-famer Ken Jennings.

Richards claims he recused himself from the selection process. But, as the New York Times noted, in his capacity as the show’s executive producer, he had a hand in selecting which footage of potential hosts ended up in front of focus group audiences.

On August 11, Sony announced that Richards would become the show’s permanent host. But an August 18 Ringer report resurfaced some seriously gross behavior from his past. On his podcast, The Randumb Show, Richards made sexist, racist, classist, and anti-Semetic statements. He’s also named in two anti-discrimination suits from his time as executive producer of The Price Is Right. In one instance, as the Times reports, Richards balked “when a model he had hired for the show revealed she was pregnant with twins.”

Last Friday, Richards formally stepped down as the show’s host. Given the nature of his priors and the rapidity with which he abandoned the hosting gig, Hollywood insiders expected that Richards would negotiate some sort of exit (likely with much $$$) from the show. But, as Sony TV exec Ravi Ahuja reportedly told Jeopardy! staff in an all-hands call this week, he’ll stay on as executive producer. He’ll now report to Suzanne Prete, a longtime business and legal affairs exec at Sony. Prete is also charged with overseeing the show’s financial dealings. Sony says Prete’s new role was determined before all of the recent business.

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According to the Times, Richards will undergo sensitivity training.

In the interim, Jeopardy! has tapped former Big Bang Theory star Mayim Bialik, who was already tapped to host the show’s primetime specials, as a temporary host. She’s, uh, not so great either.

Read More: Oh No, Jeopardy!’s Other New Host Is Pretty Bad Too

 

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