Veteran TV journalist Joan Lunden is opening up about a painful moment from early in her career. In her new memoir, Joan: Life Beyond the Script, she says a television executive once made a move on her. Then, things quickly changed at work after she rejected him.
Lunden, who later became famous as a co-host on Good Morning America, writes about the experience in her new book Joan: Life Beyond the Script. She says the incident happened when she worked at the New York station WABC-TV in the 1970s.
At the time, Lunden was still new in the television business. According to her story, one of her bosses invited her to what sounded like a work gathering with colleagues. But once they arrived, she realized it was more like a private getaway—and the executive was interested in something beyond work.
“I was embarrassed that I’d been so naive as to let this situation unfold, and I was offended as a woman that a guy—my superior at work—thought he could get away with this! He assumed that I would just go along with it,” Lunden writes in her memoir, per People. “I was also scared because it felt like there was no way out. It was evening and the sky was getting darker by the minute. You can’t just walk outside a home on Fire Island and hail a cab to take you back to your apartment.”
Joan Lunden
Lunden says she refused his advances. After that, she noticed a significant change in how she was treated at the station.
The 75-year-old writes that the boss started rejecting her story ideas and stopping them from being aired. Because reporters often received extra pay when their stories ran on television, this also affected her income.
But the money wasn’t the worst part, she says. What hurt more was the message it sent — that women in the newsroom were not treated the same as men. Lunden describes the situation as both sexual harassment and discrimination.
After dealing with the situation for a while, she decided to take action. With advice from her agent and lawyer, Lunden confronted the executive and warned him that she could take legal action if the behavior continued.
According to her memoir, the confrontation worked. The problem stopped, and they returned to working together.
Successful career
Lunden, now 75, later built a long and successful career in television. She co-hosted Good Morning America for 17 years and became one of the most recognizable faces in morning news.
Looking back, she says the experience showed how difficult the workplace could be for women at the time, especially those just starting out in the industry.
Today, Lunden continues to speak openly about the challenges she faced, hoping her story will help others understand how far things have come and how much still needs to change.
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