“Good Morning America” co-anchor Josh Elliott met with ABC top brass last week to discuss his behavior on-set and conflicts with “GMA” staffers, sources said.
We’re told Elliott had the sit-down with a top producer about his “lashing out” at the crew over frustrations about scripts.
“He’s being gossiped about in the media, and Josh is lashing out in a passive-aggressive way,” an insider told us. “They’re concerned about his behavior and trying to come up with a game plan. He’s a popular anchor, and they want to stop the gossip and focus on developing his talent.”
Reports have surfaced about Elliott having rough relationships on the set. In August, a show insider told Page Six: “Josh yells at staffers, including his own writers, saying things like, ‘Who the [bleep] wrote this?’ — while he is miked-up, so everyone in the studio can hear.”
Sources also said there had been complaints about Elliott’s behavior to ABC executives. At the time, “GMA” producer Tom Cibrowski denied the claims, calling Elliott “the ultimate team player.”
He has sparked further gossip by dating stunning WABC-TV anchor Liz Cho and staying over at her Upper West Side apartment. Cho is in the middle of a bitter divorce with her husband, Evan Gottlieb. It is believed she has cooled her relationship with Elliott over his flirtations with other women.
But others insist the meeting last week was to discuss “additional support” for Elliott, who joined the morning show last year after coanchoring ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”
Another ABC source told us: “There was a meeting last week to talk about what kind of series the execs would like Josh to work on, and ramping up some additional editorial support for him. This was an editorial meeting, period.”
Another source added of the session, “It was to provide support for him, not a dressing down . . . The tone was constructive and supportive.” A spokesperson for “GMA” told us, “We don’t discuss any internal discussions with our staff.”