Steve Kroft Admits He ‘Hated’ Working at ’60 Minutes,’ Behind the Scenes Was ‘a Snake Pit’

Veteran newsman Steve Kroft slammed his former TV home of 60 Minutes, calling it a backbiting “snake pit” that lacked “civility.”

But the accusations will come as no surprise to readers of the National Enquirer, as we’ve long reported on claims that the CBS newsmagazine is a ticking time bomb full of dark and dirty secrets — including Kroft’s long-ago three-year extramarital fling with a New York lawyer and sexual harassment allegations against other 60 Minutes men, who all denied the accusations.

Ex-correspondent Kroft, 80, who spent 30 years on the well-respected program, recently told We’ll Do It Live! podcast host Bill O’Reilly that he “hated” working on 60 Minutes and admits he “probably wouldn’t do it again” if offered the chance, according to the New York Post.

Per the report, Kroft complains that the high-profile gig was far from a dream job as he was worn down by the unrelenting grind and the show’s cutthroat culture. He says the job was a “24 hours a day” slog with constant travel, writing, editing and screenings.

“You may get a couple hours … then getting on jets … coming back and spending three or four days writing … then starting it all over again,” he says.

He also shares that longtime CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather had warned him that the 60 Minutes newsroom was staffed with “big cats” able to take out rivals with a single brutal swipe, leaving them “limping for six months.”

Kroft charges that basic decency didn’t exist in the suspicious atmosphere and suggests friendliness came with ulterior motives, quipping, “If there was civility … you better check your wallet.” He also gripes that being tapped to join the 60 Minutes team turned contemporaries into jealous adversaries as “not everybody was happy … you’ve all of a sudden made a bunch of enemies.”

Kroft says of former competitive — and paranoid — colleagues, “Everybody knows the environment … they think that somebody is behind them, going to put a shiv in their back.”

Though Kroft left 60 Minutes in 2019 at age 73, he recently chimed in on the current state of the show amid talk that Bari Weiss, the newly installed editor-in-chief of CBS News, is planning an overhaul of the 57-year-old franchise and claims of internal clashes over editorial decisions.

“I think there’s a lot of fear over there,” he observed to The Hollywood Reporter. “Fear of losing their job, fear of what’s happening to the country, fear of losing the First Amendment — all of those things.”