LOS ANGELES — Three years after workplace misconduct allegations cost veteran TV and radio talk-show host Tavis Smiley his job and a national forum, he’s ending his silence.
Smiley, who continues to deny the claims of unwanted sexual behavior that led PBS to drop his long-running show, is attempting to rebound with the purchase of a Los Angeles radio station that will offer a Black and progressive perspective on the city and nation.
Sidelined during a period of landmark racial upheaval, Smiley decided to make his own opportunity with reformatted station KBLA Talk 1580 Los Angeles. It debuted with a preview Saturday, the Juneteenth holiday commemorating when the last enslaved African Americans learned they were free.
“While I was watching this racial reckoning last summer, it was so clear to me that people were being heard to some degree, but there were no African American-owned platforms where people had their voice on a regular basis,” Smiley said. The media can lose interest when protests stop, he said, but the issues “that matter to us don’t go away.”
He was also chafing at the isolation.
“It’s frustrating when you’re used to being on the air every day somewhere, (and) people are hearing your voice in this country, seeing your face, for as many years I’ve been doing this,” he told The Associated Press. But there was an upside: introspection, and “a lot” of it, as he put it.
“It allows for growth. It allows for strengthening relationships with family and friends,” Smiley said. “So in some ways, I think I’m probably a different person than I was four years ago.”
He did not reevaluate his workplace behavior because there was no cause to, he said, and again rejected any allegations of misconduct. After losing in court last year in a breach-of-contract suit over his firing, he’s appealing the verdict that required about a $1.5 million payment from Smiley to PBS, which countersued him. A judge increased the award to about $2.6 million in August, according to The Washington Post.
“I have no idea why what happened to me happened,” he said. “This MeToo moment happened at a time and in a way where it was very difficult, almost impossible, to put forth any other narrative, no matter how truthful that narrative was.”
While acknowledging what he called “consensual” dates with co-workers before he joined PBS, “I have never harassed anyone,” Smiley said. He alleged that the public TV service reached back into his work past to find claims of misbehavior that he called false, and labeled the investigation sloppy and biased.
In its court filings, PBS cited witnesses’s allegations that Smiley subjected subordinates to lewd language and unwanted sexual advances and encounters, with six women describing misconduct claims in court testimony. The women have not been publicly identified.
“Let me be very clear: I support the MeToo movement” and covered women’s rights issues for years on his shows, he said. “I will not let you falsely accuse me of anything, and win, lose or draw, my name and my integrity is all I have.”
Asked for comment, PBS referred to its statement last year following the jury’s verdict, which said in part that “PBS expects our producing partners to provide a workplace where people feel safe and are treated with dignity and respect.”
The allegations were made about a groundbreaking radio and TV host, the first African American to get his own talk show on PBS. He said he’s received offers of work since his firing, but decided to amplify Black voices in America through a path that his late friend, Prince, touted: Controlling content and its distribution.
