❓WHAT HAPPENED: Dr. Peter Attia has exited his role as a contributor at CBS News following a controversy involving Jeffrey Epstein.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Dr. Peter Attia, CBS News, Jeffrey Epstein, and Bari Weiss.
📍WHEN & WHERE: February 22, 2026, CBS News.
💬KEY QUOTE: “I go into JE withdrawal when I don’t see [Epstein].” – Dr. Peter Attia
🎯IMPACT: This development coincides with Paramount Skydance’s new pitch for Warner Bros. Discovery.
A prominent health guru and commentator on longevity science, Dr. Peter Attia, has been removed as a contributor at CBS News after emails between him and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein were discovered among a trove of millions of U.S. government documents pertaining to the latter. Notably, Attia’s name appears over 1,700 times in the recently released Epstein Files, with direct communications between the two men suggesting a disturbingly close relationship.
“You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you?” Attia wrote to Epstein on June 24, 2015—around seven years after his 2008 conviction on state charges of solicitation of prostitution and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution. Attia continued, “The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can’t tell a soul.”
Attia was a recent addition, only joining as a contributor in January 2026, and was brought on board by the network’s new Editor-in-Chief, Bari Weiss. However, internal communications to CBS News bookers confirmed Attia’s departure from the network. The medical researcher is alleged to have continued maintaining a relationship with Epstein even as the latter faced mounting accusations throughout 2015 of sex trafficking, for which he was eventually arrested in 2019.
Another notable quote from Attia from a January 2016 email to Lesley Groff, Epstein’s assistant, stated, “I go into JE withdrawal when I don’t see him.” It is believed that Weiss resisted an initial push to cut ties with Attia, but the scale of his relationship with Epstein made his retention impossible for CBS executives.
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