Most of the women said Rose alternated between fury and flattery in his interactions with them. Five described Rose putting his hand on their legs, sometimes their upper thigh, in what they perceived as a test to gauge their reactions. Two said that while they were working for Rose at his residences or were traveling with him on business, he emerged from the shower and walked naked in front of them. One said he groped her buttocks at a staff party.
.. Kyle Godfrey-Ryan, one of Rose’s assistants in the mid-2000s, recalled at least a dozen instances where Rose walked nude in front of her while she worked in one of his New York City homes. He also repeatedly called the then-21-year-old late at night or early in the morning to describe his fantasies of her swimming naked in the Bellport pool as he watched from his bedroom, she said.
.. She said she told Yvette Vega, Rose’s longtime executive producer, about the calls.
“I explained how he inappropriately spoke to me during those times,” Godfrey-Ryan said. “She would just shrug and just say, ‘That’s just Charlie being Charlie.’ ”
.. Godfrey-Ryan said that when Rose learned she had confided to a mutual friend about his conduct, he fired her.
.. The environment brimmed with the young and potentially vulnerable, hungry for scarce television jobs.
.. The young women who were hired by the show were sometimes known as “Charlie’s Angels,” two former employees said. Rose frequently gave unsolicited shoulder rubs to several of them, behavior referred to among employees as “the crusty paw,”
.. A few days later, she said, a male colleague approached her, laughing, “Oh, you got the shower trick.”
.. Rose, who was divorced in 1980, has long had a reputation as a ladies man. His “CBS This Morning” co-host, Norah O’Donnell, introduced him at a 2014 fundraiser dinner by joking, “We’re all here because with Charlie Rose, one woman is never enough.”
.. The now-defunct Radar magazine in 2007 called him a “toxic bachelor” and repeated an unnamed woman’s claim that Rose had “palmed her buttock like a honeydew.” His then-attorney, David Boies, who has recently drawn criticism for his representation of Harvey Weinstein, demanded a retraction. The magazine refused.
.. But his wrath was swift and often fiercely persona
.. “Everybody is terrified of him,” said one of the women who said that Rose groped her when she was an intern. “He creates this environment of constant fear. And then he’ll shine a spotlight on you and make you feel amazing.”
.. Multiple women said they had at first been reassured by the presence of Vega, Rose’s executive producer
.. Before she left for Bellport, Bravo said Vega told her that personal time with Rose was a key to becoming part of the team.
.. “I read old emails, and I sound so sycophantic, it makes me sick,” she said. “But it was what he wanted, it made my work easier, and to an extent, it was the same game most staff members played. Male staffers did it, too. They just weren’t feeling as pathetic about it.”
.. Looking back, she is struck by how calculated Rose’s approach seemed.
“He most definitely said, on numerous occasions, ‘I’ve never forced you to do something you didn’t want to do,’ ” she said. “He would say this forcefully and wait for my confirmation after he said this. I remember once wondering if I was being recorded.”
Kyle Godfrey-Ryan