Katie Couric Slams ā60 Minutesā After Anderson Cooper āStoleā Her Story
Katie Couric Slams ā60 Minutesā After Anderson Cooper āStoleā Her Story

Martin HolmesThu, June 25, 2026 at 2:09 PM UTC
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Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper - Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival; Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery
Amid recent behind-the-scenes drama and upheaval at 60 Minutes, veteran journalist Katie Couric has recalled her own frustrations while working on the show between 2006 and 2011. One particular moment that left a bad taste in her mouth was when Anderson Cooper āstoleā her story and she felt āgaslitā afterwards.
Appearing on the latest episode of Alex Cooperās Call Her Daddy podcast, Couric claimed that an unnamed executive producer with the program didnāt like working with her. āThe head of 60 Minutes at the time, I think maybe because he wasnāt really consulted about bringing me over,ā she said, per Entertainment Weekly, noting how sheād moved from NBC News to CBS News following her stint on the Today show.
āI was sort of seen as somebody from a different network coming in and sort of muddying the waters,ā Couric continued. āI hadnāt come up in the CBS system. So I donāt know, he just didnāt like me.ā
She recalled one particular incident when a story she pitched on Lady Gaga was initially rejected, only to be given to a different correspondent a year later.
āI always felt likeĀ 60 MinutesĀ was a little behind on like, big cultural moments,ā Couric said. āI said, āThereās this incredible singer and I think sheās gonna be the next Madonna. Sheās so interesting. She went to Catholic school, but sheās so outrageous and sheās huge and sheās got, you know, a huge number one song. I think we should do a profile of this person: Lady Gaga.ā
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Couric said she made this pitch back in 2009 when Gaga landed her first number-one single with āJust Dance.ā At the time, she was told, āItās just not for us,ā and the pitch was turned down. A year later, however, following Gagaās hit records āPoker Face,ā āPaparazzi,ā and āBad Romance,ā the show suddenly wanted the interview.
āI was like, āOkay, well sheās kind of overexposed now,'ā Couric recalled. āAnd I thought, you know, wouldnāt it be nice to get somebody right as theyāre about to pop instead of a year later?ā
Still, Couric was excited for the interview until she realized another reporter had been assigned the story. She remembered walking over to the CBS whiteboard and seeing written there, āLady Gaga, Anderson Cooper.ā
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āIt made me crazy,ā she said before revealing something similar happened years later when she was scheduled to interview thenāSecretary of State Hillary Clinton. She said the Statement Department called her producer, saying they were āvery confusedā because Scott Pelley and his team were asking about interviewing Clinton.
āSo I go to [then-executive producer] Jeff Fager, and I say, āI thought you wanted me to do Hillary. You told me explicitly that you wanted to assign that story to me.ā And he said, āYeah, we decided to change things up.ā It made me insane,ā Couric shared.
She said she was particularly frustrated that the changes were made behind her back. āLike, without even the decency to call me and say, āGuess what? We decided to reassign the story, and this is why,'ā Couric added. āTalk about getting gaslit. I mean to me, that is the definition of it.ā
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Source: āAOL Entertainmentā