HEADING OUT

CNN Star Announces Shock Exit After 43 Years

The iconic anchor said she weighed the decision for “many months.”

CNN’s legendary chief international anchor is departing the network.

Christiane Amanpour, 68, has decided to sign off from CNN next June, she announced in a bombshell statement on Monday.

“After many months of thought and a few sleepless nights, I have decided to separate from CNN, my partner of 43 fantastic years!” she said, adding that she “looks forward to interesting new projects down the line, and will always be rooting for CNN and maintaining its history of independent journalism. Remember: always be truthful, not neutral.”

CNN chairman Mark Thompson broke the news to Amanpour’s colleagues in a memo.

“Christiane has thought carefully about this decision, and she and I have been discussing it for some months,” he wrote. “Like so many CNNers who will hear the news today, I’m very sorry to see her go, but I’ve come to accept that this is the right time for her, both personally and professionally.”

Amanpour’s eponymous CNN International show will be scaled back to once a week starting early next year. It will conclude in May, a month before Amanpour leaves the network. Her PBS show, Amanpour & Company, will also end in December. Meanwhile, her podcast The Ex Files, which she co-hosts with her ex-husband and former U.S. diplomat Jamie Rubin, will continue.

Amanpour joined CNN in 1983 as a news desk assistant in the Atlanta bureau.

“Famously, one of her bosses told her back then that she didn’t have what it took to become a foreign correspondent – or to hold any on-air role at all,” Thompson said in his memo. “Boy, did she prove him wrong!”

CNN eventually gave Amanpour a shot at the New York bureau, allowing her to work as a correspondent on the weekends on top of three days as a producer, she previously told The Guardian. Over the next four decades, she made her mark with high-profile interviews and 24-hour war coverage.

Amanpour said she wanted to thank “all the amazingly talented people I’ve worked with throughout this incredible journey. Especially my beloved show teams and field crews.”

Her decision to leave CNN came a year after she announced that her ovarian cancer had returned a third time, though she said it was being “very well managed.”

Amanpour’s departure also comes months after she expressed concern over Skydance’s acquisition of CNN. The media giant, which also owns CBS News, is run by Trumpy CEO David Ellison.

BLUNT ASSESSMENT

CNN Legend Savages New Owner for Turning CBS MAGA

Tom Latchem

Play Video

“Clearly I’m concerned, and I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say about a corporate thing that’s underway, but I am obviously as a person, as a journalist with a record—yeah, concern. And I’m concerned based on what’s happened. And I’m concerned based on what’s happened to the other things that he’s taken over already, like CBS News,” she said in May.

“Do I have to list what’s happening there? I mean, hemorrhaging viewers, probably hemorrhaging money, this ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction, potentially, of 60 Minutes,” she went on.

NO HOLDS BARRED

‘60 Minutes’ Legend Goes In on Trump After Bust-Up With Boss

Vic Verbalaitis

CBS News underwent a dramatic shakeup after Bari Weiss, an opinion blogger with no TV experience, was installed as editor-in-chief last year. President Donald Trump previously praised her as a “great, new leader.”

The network’s venerated newsmagazine show, 60 Minutes, has long been at the center of controversy over reports of infighting over Weiss’ “very, very hands-on” approach to stories, which has rankled top correspondents like Lesley Stahl and Sharyn Alfonsi.

Amanpour, who was a part-time 60 Minutes correspondent until 2005, said she hoped for “editorial independence” from CNN’s new bosses. She acknowledged that the network’s leadership was “very, very committed to that, clearly, and I don’t think I need to say more than that.”

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Julia OrnedoReporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.