Just one day after Last Week Tonight host John Oliver torched CBS over refusing to fire their longevity expert with ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Attia finally quit.
Attia, 52, who was brought on board by CBS News’ new MAGA-curious News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, tendered his resignation on Monday morning, effective immediately.
According to a statement from his spokesperson to The New York Times, Attia resigned “to ensure his involvement didn’t become a distraction from the important work being done at CBS.”
The longevity expert, who joined CBS in January, appeared more than 1,700 times in the Epstein Files. The emails between Attia and Epstein revealed an uncomfortably close relationship between the pair. In a 2016 email, Attia messaged the convicted sex offender, writing, “P---y is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”
The Daily Beast reached out to CBS News for comment when news of Attia’s resignation first broke earlier on Monday.
On Sunday, Oliver, 48, scorched the former chief science officer of David Protein and his former broadcast parent company.
“It is wild that CBS News somehow has lower standards than a protein bar company that markets their products like this, and also like this,” Oliver said, before sharing some of the company’s sexually charged advertising.
Oliver then directly called out the health expert for “just how comfortable far too many people were” in turning a blind eye to Epstein’s “heinous actions.”
Last Week Tonight is available to stream on HBO Max, which is owned by Warner Bros. Entertainment. Oliver’s parent company is in the middle of a sale that has sparked a bidding war between Netflix and Paramount, the parent company of CBS.
After Warner Bros. accepted a bid from Netflix in December, the David Ellison-owned Paramount has begun an all-out assault to secure a deal by any means possible. On Monday, Paramount further increased its all-cash bid, which was already $2.50 a share above Netflix’s supposed winning bid, according to Bloomberg sources.
Oliver, whose show has outlasted two previous mergers, had a clear message for a potential union with CBS through would-be parent company Paramount.
“Please stay the f--- away from us,” Oliver said. “You are not my real business daddy, and you never will be!”
In January, Oliver shared his thoughts on the eventual Warner Bros. takeover.
“I will act as if nothing will change,” Oliver told Trevor Noah, noting that his team will go forward with “aggression” and “confidence.”
“We’ve been behaving the way we’ve been behaving for so long that you can’t really reason with us,” he said. “So there’s no point in doing that.”
