CBS News recruit Peter Attia has been forced to give up a lucrative side hustle after the revelation that he and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein had a close friendship and shared crude and explicit emails over many years.
Attia, a 52-year-old ‘longevity expert,’ featured prominently in Friday’s dump of documents from the Epstein files. His name appeared over 1,700 times.
Time stamps on one email revealed that Attia ignored his wife’s plea to come to the hospital where their infant son was fighting for his life after cardiac arrest in 2017, and instead went to meet with Epstein in New York.
Another email Attia sent to Epstein cryptically read, “You know the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul…”
That message was written seven years after Epstein was first arrested for procuring a child for prostitution and four years before his federal sex-trafficking arrest in 2019.
New CBS News Editor in Chief Bari Weiss recently hired Attia as a contributor as part of her MAGA-friendly overhaul of the network.
CBS News had to address the Attia issue on Monday night. Justice correspondent Scott MacFarlane told viewers, “The Epstein files also show hundreds of references to physician and author Peter Attia, who was recently hired as a CBS News contributor, including crude, sexual messages by Attia.”
MacFarlane said Attia had “apologized” and said he was not involved in any criminal activity. He still appears to be employed by the network.
But the founder of protein bar manufacturer David Protein, Peter Rahal, posted on X on Monday evening that Attia’s time at the company was over.
“Dr. Peter Attia has stepped down from his role as Chief Science Officer at David,” Rahal posted. “We remain focused on serving our customers.”
The Daily Beast has contacted David for comment.
Attia published a lengthy post on X on Monday in which he insisted he was not involved in any criminal activity and had never been on Epstein’s plane or to his private Caribbean island or sex parties.
He said his interactions with Epstein “had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation” of anyone.
“That said, I apologize and regret putting myself in a position where emails, some of them embarrassing, tasteless, and indefensible, are now public, and that is on me,” Attia wrote. “I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it.”
One of the NSFW 2016 emails saw Attia tell Epstein, “P---y is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”
In his X post, Attia said his explanation was not “meant to minimize the harm suffered by the young women Epstein abused. Their trauma is permanent.”
He wrote, “I am not asking for a pass from you. I am not asking anyone to ignore the emails or pretend they aren’t ugly. They simply are. The man I am today, roughly ten years later, would not write them and would not associate with Epstein at all.”
Attia added, “Whatever growth I’ve had over the past decade does not erase the emails I wrote then.”
His exit from David comes as The Daily Beast reported on Sunday that his name had already been wiped from the “expert” section on the company’s website.
Attia was a major investor in the company as well as having the chief science officer role. While it is not clear when his name was deleted, a Wayback Machine search reveals Attia was visible on the home page on Jan. 29, the day before the latest Epstein files were released.
