Dr. Peter Attia has reportedly stepped back from his CBS News contributor role after an email revealed in the Epstein Files that he met with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while his son was in the ICU.
The CBS News staff was informed of Attia’s exit from the network on Monday, February 23, in a “note from the network’s booking department,” according to The Hollywood Reporter, the first to report the news.
Attia, 52, reportedly told CBS that he would be resigning effective immediately, per the outlet.
“Dr. Attia’s contributor role was newly established and had not yet meaningfully begun,” a spokesperson for Attia told CNBC in a statement on Monday. “As such, he stepped back to ensure his involvement didn’t become a distraction from the important work being done at CBS.”
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Attia “wishes the network and its leadership well and has no further comment at this time,” the statement concluded.
Us Weekly has reached out to CBS for comment.
Attia’s departure from CBS News came less than one month after the wellness guru apologized for his “indefensible” correspondence with the convicted sex offender, revealed after the Department of Justice (DOJ) released millions of documents related to the federal investigation into the disgraced financier. (Epstein died by suicide in 2019 at the age of 66 while in jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.)
Attia came under fire after an email dated July 12, 2017, revealed that he and Epstein allegedly engaged in a back and forth where they made plans to meet up the following day.
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“Can you do before 10am? Tomorrow,” Epstein’s email allegedly sent to Attia read. Attia then allegedly responded, “Sure. I can come earlier, also, if you have a hard stop at 10. Let me know.”
Although the exchange is not among the most scandalous emails that have come from so-called the Epstein Files, it did raise eye brows as Attia had previously admitted that he left his wife, Jill, and their then-infant son to handle a health scare alone within that same timeframe.
“Tuesday, July 11, 2017, at 5:45 p.m., to be exact — I had received a call from Jill, my wife,” Attia wrote in his 2022 book, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.
He recalled that his wife called him from an ambulance after their son had “suddenly stopped breathing” and had no heartbeat. Their child was resuscitated by a nurse via CPR, but he had to stay in the ICU — and Attia wasn’t there.
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“When Jill called me from the ambulance, I was in New York, in a taxi on Fifty-Fourth Street, on my way to dinner,” Attia wrote in his book. “After she finished telling me the story, I just said, without a shred of emotion, ‘OK, call me when you get to the hospital, so I can talk to the doctors in the ICU.’”
Attia further confessed that he remained in New York “busy with my ‘important’ work” for 10 days after his son’s cardiac episode. According to the Epstein Files emails, Attia was in the Big Apple to meet with Epstein while his son was recovering in California.
While Attia didn’t directly speak about the ICU incident and Epstein meeting timeline crossover, he did apologize in February for his connection to Epstein.
“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 in a February 2 statement shared via X, which he claimed he also sent to his team and patients. “I accept that reality and the humiliation that comes with it.”
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Attia’s name was mentioned more than 1,700 times in the January 30 released files. However, he claimed his relationship with Epstein, which began in 2014 and ended in 2019, came from a desire to raise “funds for scientific research.” (Epstein was convicted in 2008 by a Florida State court of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. He served 13 months in prison as part of a plea deal and was forced to register as a sex offender.)
Attia denied that he is someone who “participated in criminal activity, enabled it, or witnessed it,” which he said is the “purpose” of the DOJ releasing documents related to the Epstein investigation.
“I am not in any of those categories, and there is no evidence to the contrary,” he alleged in his social media statement. “To be clear: 1. I was not involved in any criminal activity. 2. My interactions with Epstein had nothing to do with his sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone. 3. I was never on his plane, never on his island, and never present at any sex parties.”
