Peter Attia appears to be staying at CBS News despite Epstein communications

Two weeks after a trove of files revealed extensive – and inappropriate – communications between Jeffrey Epstein and a recently named CBS News contributor, the longevity expert Peter Attia, the network appears to have settled on keeping him.

“Everyone internally unofficially concluded he was staying as of about a week ago,” one CBS News staffer told the Guardian.

Officially, CBS News has been silent about Attia, and declined to comment when asked on Friday. Attia is one of the 19 on-air contributors that editor-in-chief Bari Weiss said she was “so excited” to announce during an all-staff meeting on 27 January.

“We’re pissed off about it,” a second CBS News staffer, who was also not authorized to comment, said.

Announcing his appointment, CBS News said the contributors, “all experts in their field”, would allow the network to “significantly [expand] its knowledge base”. Attia, who hosts a popular podcast, is known as an expert in the fields of longevity and preventative medicine, though he has faced skepticism from some in the medical world.

But on 30 January, the justice department’s release of millions of documents showed that Attia had expressed a fondness for Epstein and used extremely graphic language in at least one email to him. That Attia had met with Epstein was previously known before CBS News hired him.

A search of Attia’s name in the justice department’s database returns 1,838 results.

“I go into JE withdrawal when I don’t see him,” Attia wrote in one January 2016 email to Epstein’s assistant.

A year earlier, in an exchange with Epstein, Attia seemed to hint at his knowledge of Epstein’s misdeeds – though he has denied that he was referring to criminal sexual activity.

“You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you?” he wrote in the email. “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul … ”

And in one particularly lewd 2016 email, Attia wrote to Epstein: “Pussy is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten content, though.”

Attia also stayed at one of Epstein’s apartments, according to the correspondence made public. “I’m spoiled after staying in your great place. Mine is kind of a dump,” Attia wrote Epstein in February 2016.

On 2 February, Attia published a long message he had sent to his employees explaining his connections to Epstein.

“I was not involved in any criminal activity,” he wrote. “My interactions with Epstein had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone. I was never on his plane, never on his island, and never present at any sex parties. 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 said he met with Epstein approximately seven or eight times between 2014 and 2019 “regarding research studies and to meet others he introduced me to”. He also admitted to answering Epstein’s medical questions and recommending doctors to him on occasion.

“The man I am today, roughly 10 years later, would not write them and would not associate with Epstein at all,” he wrote.

Attia appeared in an October episode of 60 Minutes and was interviewed by correspondent Norah O’Donnell, who said he “has become both a pioneer and a star in the growing field of longevity medicine”.

CBS had been scheduled to re-air O’Donnell’s interview of Attia on 8 February, Super Bowl Sunday, but decided against it amid the backlash.

Although Attia is still on the payroll as a CBS News contributor, it’s not clear when – or if – he will actually appear on air.

When addressing her staff, Weiss had encouraged shows to book the network’s new contributors – but programs are not obligated to book specific individuals.

Attia has been keeping a low profile. He has not posted on X since his apology. He also has not posted any episodes of his popular podcast, The Peter Attia Drive, this month.

Jennifer Ashton, a one-time CBS News medical correspondent who then spent more than a decade as ABC News’s chief health and medical correspondent, recently criticized her former network and said she would not appear while Attia remains a contributor.

“The fact that CBS News hasn’t taken action is deeply troubling,” she wrote on Instagram. “People have been fired from network television for far less. Morality clauses exist for a reason. If documented language like this doesn’t cross that line, then the bar has fallen dangerously low.”

Mary Claire Haver, a menopause specialist, said her publisher had arranged an exclusive interview on CBS Mornings to promote her forthcoming book, The New Perimenopause. “But given their decision to retain Peter Attia, I’m making the decision not to go on CBS,” she said in her own Instagram post. “This is my way of saying no, I’m not going to stand for this.”