Peter Attia leaves CBS News after Epstein emails surface
Dr. Peter Attia is leaving CBS News after his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was revealed. He has expressed regret over his email exchanges with the disgraced financier, and no criminal charges have been filed in Epstein’s case.
Controversial health guru Peter Attia is leaving CBS News after his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was revealed.
In a statement to USA TODAY on Monday, Feb. 23, Attia’s spokesperson said his “role as a contributor is newly established and has not yet meaningfully begun.”
“As such, he has stepped back to avoid interfering with the important work being done at CBS,” the statement continued. “He wishes the network and its leadership every success and has no further comment at this time.”
The Hollywood Reporter first reported the news. USA TODAY has reached out to CBS for comment.
The latest Justice Department files, released on January 30, include documents involving Mr. Attia that show crude exchanges between Mr. Attia and the convicted sex offender about female genitals and emails that suggest he may have been with Mr. Epstein while his wife was hospitalized with their son after a near-fatal incident. Other emails suggest doctors discussed longevity with investors.
Earlier, in a lengthy apology released by Company X on February 2 for his interactions with Epstein, Attia said he was “not involved in any criminal activity” and had nothing to do with the convicted predator’s “sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone” and that in 2014 he met Epstein, “who was widely known in academic and philanthropic circles as a science funder at the time, through a prominent female medical leader while I was fundraising.” It’s for scientific research. ”
Attia added that the two met seven or eight times at Epstein’s New York City home to discuss research and networks. Still, he said: “I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where embarrassing, tasteless and inexcusable emails were published. That was my responsibility.”
The Epstein files have been released without context, and the allegations within have not been independently verified by USA TODAY.
Although many well-known names appear in the document, their mentions do not indicate that anyone was involved in any wrongdoing.
Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to solicitation of minors for prostitution and was charged with overseeing a global sex trafficking network, died by suicide in a Manhattan prison in 2019 while awaiting trial. His close aide, Ghislaine Maxwell, was also convicted of similar charges and is serving a 20-year sentence in a U.S. federal prison.
Peter Attia and Epstein emails
In a particularly damning email to a convicted sex offender in 2016, Attia joked that female genitals are “certainly low in carbohydrates, but we’re still waiting for results on gluten content.”
Other emails describe an appointment between Attia and an unknown colleague on July 13, 2017, and emails between Epstein and his longtime assistant and planner Leslie Groff confirm a meeting with Attia that same afternoon.
This date would have been around the time of the incident that the wellness coach wrote about in his 2022 book, Outlive, in which he chastises himself for not being by his wife and son’s side after their one-month-old baby suddenly stopped breathing.
“Actually, I was out of control. I wasn’t just some garden-variety road freak either. A few months ago, on Tuesday, July 11, 2017, at 5:45 to be exact, I received a call from my wife Jill. She was in the ambulance with our young son… en route to the hospital,” Atia wrote. “For some reason, he suddenly stopped breathing and lost consciousness. His eyes were completely rolled back into their sockets, he was lifeless and pale, and there was no heartbeat.”
His son soon started breathing, but was still detained in the hospital for four days, all the while his wife “begged him to go home. I called every day to talk to the doctor and discuss the daily test results, but I remained in New York because I was busy with important work.”
He added: “I am sickened by my actions. I can’t believe I did that to my family. I can’t believe what a blind, selfish, watched husband and father I was.”
Contributors: Pamela Avila and Josh Meyer, USA TODAY
