Cybill Shepherd Says Les Moonves Canceled ‘Cybill’ Because She Refused Advances
In a bombshell interview, Cybill Shepherd revealed on SiriusXM’s The Michelle Collins Show that disgraced CBS Chairman Les Moonves canceled her hit show Cybill because she turned down his sexual advances while he was married to then-wife Nancy Wiesenfeld.
The show ran for four seasons from 1995 to 1998 and earned Cybill two Golden Globes. It was also nominated for 12 Emmys during its run: “My show could’ve run another five years but I didn’t fall on the right side of Les Moonves,” she shared. “I wasn’t going to fall at all for Les.”
Cybill added that her rocky relationship with Les began when he urged her to go on a dinner date with him:
“His assistant and my assistant made a dinner date and we went to it and he was, well he was telling me his wife didn’t turn him on, some mistress didn’t turn him on,” Cybill shared. “And I’m watching him drink alcohol and I’m going, he says, ‘Well, you know, why don’t you let me take you home?’ I said, ‘No, I’ve got a ride and I had my car outside with a good friend of mine who is an off-duty LAPD officer.’”
Soon after, she claims, Cybill started getting notes from Les about her show.
“It’s just funny to see somebody whose quote ‘pretty,’ you know, talking with some food in their mouth, not overdoing it. It’s just funny. And then I got that note, ‘Don’t do that anymore. Don’t have Cybill talk while she’s eating,’” she recalled. “Then it was, okay, we had done one menopause episode, then we were going to do a second one. They said, ‘You can’t use “menses,” “menstruation” or “period” and I fought to say period and that ended up in Newsweek or Time just that year. I had had to fight to say period.”