In a guest column published early Wednesday, Designing Women creator Linda Bloodworth Thomason claimed that ex-CBS chairman Les Moonves conspired to destroy her career for seven years. While Bloodworth Thomason said that she was never sexually harassed or assaulted by Moonves, she insisted that “not all harassment is sexual,” and she accused Moonves of sidelining her for being an outspoken feminist. Bloodworth Thomason’s piece in The Hollywood Reporter comes just three days after a new wave of sexual misconduct allegations prompted Moonves to resign from CBS.
By the early 1990s, Bloodworth Thomason had made a name for herself as a CBS sitcom queen. Designing Women was a smash hit, and her new series, Evening Shade, “had just been lauded as the best new comedy of the season,” she wrote. In 1995, that all changed when Moonves took over as CBS president, and he immediately voiced his distaste for the creator. Said Bloodworth Thomason:
He showed up at the first table read [for a new pilot] and took a chair directly across from mine (actress Illeana Douglas, who later accused him of sexual harassment, sat next to me) … He sat and stared at me throughout the entire reading with eyes that were stunningly cold, as in, “You are so dead.” I had not experienced such a menacing look since Charles Manson tried to stare me down on a daily basis when I was a young reporter covering that trial. As soon as the pilot was completed, Moonves informed me that it would not be picked up. I was at the pinnacle of my career. I would not work again for seven years.
Bloodworth Thomas recalled that Moonves rejected countless other pilots over the years. “He continued turning down every pilot I wrote,” she said. “Even when an actress managed to get one of my scripts through an agent, the deal would immediately be killed. It was like a personal vendetta and I will never know why.” Ultimately, Bloodworth Thomason’s only option was to leave CBS. “People asked me for years, ‘Where have you been? What happened to you?’ Les Moonves happened to me,” she wrote.
In the column, the Designing Women creator also revealed that Moonves assaulted the lead actress of a popular CBS drama. “Coming off the cancellation of her iconic detective show, the star began pitching a new one. He informed her that she was too old to be on his network,” wrote Bloodworth Thomason. When she stood up to leave, Moonves took her by the shoulders and forcibly kissed her. “He shoved his tongue down her throat. I know this happened because the star is the person who told me,” she said.
Bloodworth Thomason acknowledges that “Les Moonves may never be punished in the way that he deserves,” but she promises that she won’t stop fighting until predators like him are gone. Until Hollywood sees that day, she has a few choice words for Moonves. “With your acknowledgement that I have never, in my life, spoken a single cross word to you, despite the way you treated me, may I simply say, channeling my finest Julia Sugarbaker delivery: ‘Go fuck yourself!'”
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