Scott Pelley Fired From '60 Minutes' After Fiery Meeting With New Producer

Scott Pelley has been fired from 60 Minutes after getting into a tense situation with the show's new executive producer, Nick Bilton.

Bilton told the staff on Tuesday, June 2, he was “terminated for cause effective immediately," according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“You should hear this from me first. We have parted ways with Scott Pelley,” Bilton continued. “I know how much Scott meant to many of you, and I don’t say this lightly. I made repeated attempts to have direct conversations with him over the weekend, and this afternoon I tried to find common ground. That was not the path Scott chose.”

Bilton went off on Pelley in the memo, saying, “Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort.”

Pelley has been at CBS News for decades.

As OK! previously reported, Pelley told Bilton during their fiery Monday, June 1, meeting that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is "murdering 60 Minutes. She does not love this place; she was brought in to kill it and is doing exactly that.”

Pelley also claimed Bilton, who previously worked as a journalist for The New York Times and Vanity Fair, had “slender” qualifications regarding his new job.

He demanded to know why Bilton accepted the role, asking, "knowing that you will never be welcome here.”

"Well, I will show you. That’s what I have to say,” Bilton replied. “That is my plan over the next two weeks. I’ll be meeting with everyone. I’m very excited to meet with everyone, yourself included."

Weiss hired Bilton last month to head the show.

In a memo to staff last week, Weiss and CBS News President Tom Cibrowski said their goal was “building a show that thrives in the 21st century.”

“That requires a new approach,” they said, adding they want to “expand 60 Minutes beyond a one-hour television broadcast, deepening its role across CBS News, and holding everything we produce to the ambition, fairness, and fearlessness that have defined 60 Minutes at its best.”

"For me, the journalism is the journalism," Bilton said, according to the recording. "That is why I am here. That is why we are all here."

After the incident, Pelley told the New York Times that he still cares about the show.

“I have been in combat in Afghanistan,” Pelley said. “I have been in combat in Iraq. I have been in the war zone in Ukraine multiple times, risking my life and the happiness of my family because of my devotion to the broadcast.”

He added that Bilton’s statement “betrays a complete misunderstanding of what we work for and what we live for at 60 Minutes.”

He also called Weiss as “cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News” after failing to answer why former executive producer Tanya Simon was dismissed.