CBS’ Matt Gutman Faces Sexual Harassment Lawsuit Allegations

CBS News Chief Correspondent Matt Gutman is facing allegations of sexual harassment after a former colleague named him in a new lawsuit.

Gutman, 48, who was recently credited with helping lift ratings at the struggling network, is accused of making inappropriate comments toward former ABC News journalist Samira Said.

Said outlined the claims in a wrongful termination complaint filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court against ABC News and its parent company, Disney.

The lawsuit, reviewed by the Daily Mail, names Gutman as a defendant and describes two alleged incidents involving Said, who previously worked as a field producer.

In the filing, Said alleges she was assigned to an all-male team that included Gutman, and that the group was waiting together in a public line while working on an assignment.

Said claims that during that wait, Gutman “initiated a discussion” in which a female correspondent’s appearance was rated.

The complaint alleges he then diminished the correspondent’s professional reputation by assigning her a numerical score tied to her looks, with other male crew members allegedly taking part in the exchange.

According to the lawsuit, the men tried to draw Said into the conversation, but she refused and told them the discussion was inappropriate.

On a separate occasion relating to the release of a movie, Gutman is accused of making a ‘sexualized insinuation’ towards her. 

According to Said, she and Gutman had a disagreement about leaving the area when he questioned if she had an ‘after-hours date in the city’ as being the reason for wanting to leave.

Said claimed that Gutman made the remark ‘audibly to others’ which she said ‘demeaned’ her and ‘reduced her professional judgement to a sexualized stereotype.’ 

Gutman worked with ABC News for nearly two decades, mainly in California, before leaving to join CBS earlier this year under new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. 

It emerged this week that as a stand-in for anchor Tony Dokoupil, who is on vacation, the show marked its most watched month since March. 

Gutman promptly managed 4.1 million viewers, 300,000 more than Dokoupil’s average for July.

The development puts pressure on Dokoupil, who has not passed the four million marker since March.

In the other parts of Said’s suit she also claimed that she was wrongfully terminated from ABC in 2025 while dealing with mental health issues. 

The suit directly accused the company of violating California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act by not accommodating her. 

She was assigned to cover the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where she interviewed child survivors who witnessed the massacre even though she was experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, the suit said. 

After returning, she said she needed to take a short period of leave that was knocked back despite suffering ‘severe psychological symptoms,’ the suit said. 

According to the suit, a psychiatrist later approved a medical leave, but after it started Said was still being given assignment requests. 

She was cleared to return to work in January of 2023 subject to ‘reasonable accommodations’ to prevent her from ‘trauma triggers,’ the suit said. 

Said claimed that the HR department at ABC worked for months to ‘pressure’ her to drop these accommodations, and in September of that year she said she suffered a mental health crisis and was off work for several months. 

In January of last year, she worked on the Los Angeles wildfires, which she said ‘ignored’ her accommodation requests. 

The suit added: ‘Defendants made this assignment with knowledge of Said’s disability and without any accommodations in place.

The lawsuit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as her attorney fees. 

The Daily Mail approached CBS for comment.