Dr. Peter Attia, the 52-year-old anti-aging researcher with 1.7 million Instagram followers and a growing media profile, is out at CBS News. The network confirmed the departure in a Monday letter to staffers, just weeks after naming him a contributor. A source familiar with the matter said Attia would be resigning effective immediately.
The New York Post reported that a new Justice Department release uncovered troves of correspondence between Attia and the late Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in a New York City jail cell in 2019 while facing federal charges related to the sex trafficking of minors.
Attia's name appeared 1,741 times across the 3 million documents released earlier this year under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
The emails paint a picture of a man who wasn't just acquainted with Epstein. He was comfortable with him. Enthusiastic, even.
In a 2015 email to Epstein's longtime assistant Lesley Groff, Attia used the subject line "Got a fresh shipment." The photo attached was redacted from the files. Whatever it depicted, it was sent through Epstein's inner circle with the casual tone of someone who belonged there.
A 2016 email to Epstein himself went further. Attia wrote:
"P—y is, indeed, low carb. Still awaiting results on gluten, though."
That email was sent eight years after Epstein was convicted of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. This wasn't correspondence with a man whose crimes were unknown. Epstein's conviction was public record. Attia chose to stay in orbit anyway.
Another email from Attia to Epstein captured the relationship's flavor with startling clarity:
"You [know] the biggest problem with becoming friends with you? The life you lead is so outrageous, and yet I can't tell a soul…"
In other correspondence, Attia joked about going into "JE withdrawal." These aren't the words of a man who bumped into a controversial figure at a conference once. They describe a relationship that Attia valued, cultivated, and wanted to continue.
Attia released a lengthy statement earlier this month insisting his correspondence with Epstein had nothing to do with "sexual abuse or exploitation of anyone" and that he "was not involved in any criminal activity." He then offered this:
"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."
Note the construction carefully. The regret is about being in a position where the emails became public. Not about sending them. Not about maintaining a friendship with a convicted sex offender whose victims were children. The apology is for getting caught in the disclosure, not for the conduct that produced the disclosure.
He added:
"I am not asking anyone to ignore the emails or pretend they aren't ugly. They simply are."
On that point, at least, he's right.
Attia's hiring was part of a broader effort at CBS News. Paramount Skydance boss David Ellison hired Bari Weiss, the outspoken critic of "cancel culture," as editor in chief to bring more conservative voices to the network. Weiss announced Attia's hiring. Now, weeks later, he's gone.
The episode is embarrassing for Weiss and for the broader project she represents at CBS. Whatever one thinks of the effort to diversify network news beyond its default liberal assumptions, the credibility of that project depends on the people chosen to carry it out.
Bringing on a contributor whose name surfaces over seventeen hundred times in the Epstein files suggests the vetting process failed at a basic level. This information was available.
The documents were already public. Someone should have read them before the press release went out.
CBS News and Paramount did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Attia is not the only figure feeling the weight of these documents. He had already stepped down earlier this month as chief science officer for David Protein before the CBS departure.
The Epstein files are proving to be a slow-rolling accountability mechanism that elite institutions spent years hoping would never arrive.
Prince Andrew was arrested on his birthday last week for suspicion of misconduct in public office. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently backed out of an AI summit in India just hours before he was scheduled to deliver the keynote address, following heated backlash over his ties to the Epstein files.
For years, the names in Epstein's world operated with a kind of social impunity. The connections were whispered about but rarely carried consequences. The release of 3 million documents changed the math. What was once rumor is now correspondence, timestamped and searchable.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act is doing exactly what accountability measures are supposed to do: forcing sunlight into spaces that powerful people preferred to keep dark.
Every resignation, every cancelled keynote, every arrest is a data point confirming what many Americans suspected for years. The people in Epstein's orbit weren't naive.
They weren't duped. They enjoyed access to a man whose crimes were known, and they calculated that proximity to power and money was worth the moral cost.
Attia had half a million followers on X and nearly two million on Instagram. He had a CBS News contributor title. He had a chief science officer role. In a matter of weeks, he has none of it.
The documents didn't lie. The emails were his own words. And no statement, however lengthy, can unwrite them.
