Morgan Freeman Demands CNN Retract Its Report About Sexual Harassment

Morgan Freeman isn’t taking accusations that he sexually harassed women without a fight.

The lawyer for the Oscar-winning actor, Robert Schwartz, issued a demand for a retraction and apology to CNN’s President Jeff Zucker on Tuesday for its recent explosive story.

“It has been said that ‘A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.’ In just the few days since CNN published the article on Mr. Freeman, it has traveled all the way around the world and back, millions of times. If CNN has any decency, or any allegiance to journalistic integrity, it will immediate [sic] retract the article and issue a public apology to Mr. Freeman,” the letter said.

The letter, obtained by Deadline Hollywood, blasted CNN for “malicious intent, falsehoods, slight-of-hand [sic], an absence of editorial control, and journalistic malpractice.”

One of the key claims by the legal team is that CNN breached journalistic ethics by allowing an affected party, CNN’s entertainment reporter Chloe Melas, to contribute to the report. Schwartz cited “current and former editors of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post” in his letter as having expressed “surprise” that CNN permitted this to occur.

“Of the three people CNN identified as being a ‘victim,’ the first, CNN’s own Chloe Melas, had no reasonable basis to have interpreted what Mr. Freeman said or did at the ‘Going In Style’ interview last year as having been directed at her or as any form of harassment. The videotape confirms that his statement had nothing to do with her and was not harassing,” Schwartz’s letter read.

Freeman’s lawyer also claimed that two other women CNN identified as victims, Tyra Martin and Lori McCreary, denied that the actor sexually harassed them.

“Hey, still getting a lot of nasty messages from people who think I AM one of the accusers,” Tyra Martin told TMZ. “I’m not, never was. CNN totally misrepresented the video and took my remarks out of context.”

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Regarding producer Lori McCreary, named in the original report, Freeman made waves in June 2016 when it surfaced that he said of his production partner: “She doesn’t want to be thought of as a pretty face. She wants to be thought of as serious. But you can’t get away from the short dresses.”

When confronted by a conference moderator, Mark Gordon, with concerns that the remark could be interpreted as “sexist” and “misogynistic,” Freeman replied: “Sexist? Yeah, but I’m not misogynistic.”

The letter follows a qualified apology from the 80-year-old actor last Thursday, after he was accused by eight women and a total of six witnesses of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior on movie sets and at press junkets.

“Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy,” the actor said. “I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected — that was never my intent.”

There is a lot at stake for Freeman as his legal team takes action against CNN.

On Friday, the actor took a much stronger stance against the accusations, denying he created “unsafe work environments.”

“I am devastated that 80 years of my life [are] at risk of being undermined, in the blink of an eye, by Thursday’s media reports,” Freeman said on Friday. “I also want to be clear: I did not create unsafe work environments. I did not assault women. I did not offer employment or advancement in exchange for sex. Any suggestion that I did so is completely false.”

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CNN responded to Morgan Freeman’s assertion that its story was inaccurate. “The unfounded accusations made by Mr. Freeman’s lawyer are disappointing and are difficult to reconcile with Mr. Freeman’s own public statements in the aftermath of the story,” the cable network said in a statement.

“CNN stands by its reporting and will respond forcefully to any attempt by Mr. Freeman or his representatives to intimidate us from covering this important public issue,” it continued.

There is a lot at stake for Freeman as his legal team takes action against CNN. Visa has already suspended the actor from his work as a spokesman for the company, and the Screen Actors Guild is considering taking back the Lifetime Achievement Award it gave him.

“The damage CNN has inflicted is real. And given Mr. Freeman’s career and many motion picture and television commitments, it is substantial,” Schwartz said.

Kyle Becker is a content writer and producer with LifeZette. Follow him on Twitter.