Is the ousted CBS CEO really talking? Or is someone catfishing reporters?

William Cohan writes for Vanity Fair that an interview that ousted CBS CEO Les Moonves gave to Agenda, a Financial Times publication, may have been someone impersonating the executive.

Cohan writes, “But as has continuously been the case in the Moonves saga, things might be more complicated behind the scenes. In the weeks since the piece first appeared online, people close to Moonves have told me that he never spoke to the two reporters, that he has no idea what Agenda is, has never read it, and wouldn’t have said the things in the article that were attributed to him. (He has been known, however, to talk to people around CBS about what a great job he did when he was C.E.O.) These people suspect that it’s possible that the reporters were catfished—that they may have been fooled by a Moonves impersonator with a sick sense of humor.

“Initially, Agenda pushed back. When I spoke to Williams-Alvarez before Christmas, she told me that she and Forshee had spoken twice to someone they were certain was Moonves, that they knew what he sounded like and had his cell-phone number. They also had his new Gmail address. And besides, Williams-Alvarez said, if there was a problem with the piece, why had no one from the Moonves camp asked Agenda to take it down? It was a good point.

“But, now, people close to Moonves have asked Agenda to remove the story, according to an editor’s note that recently appeared at the top of the article page.”

Read more here.