Allison Gollust Net Worth and Salary, Age, Ex-Husband, Jeff Zucker Relationship

Allison Gollust Age

Allison is 50 years of age as of 2022, she was born on 2 October 1972, in New York City, New York, United States. She celebrates her birthday every year with her family and close friends, her zodiac sign is Sagittarius.

Allison Gollust Wikipedia

Allison Gollust Husband

Gollust was previously married to her husband Billy Hunt.

Allison Gollust Net Worth

Allison is estimated to have a net worth of $10.2 million dollars at present. She has accumulated her net worth with the versatility she has shown in each field she has worked in. Her main source of earning is from her executive career. As she progresses in her career, her net worth is projected to rise.

Allison Gollust Salary

Allison Gollust’s salary is $607 thousand every year and gets a monthly salary of $97,870.

Allison Gollust and Jeff Zucker Relationship Explored

The office romance that led CNN president Jeff Zucker to resign abruptly on Wednesday made for shocking headlines. According to Variety, the only surprise for media insiders and employees of the news network was that it had finally gone public.

Insiders said Zucker’s fondness for CNN chief marketing officer Allison Gollust had been well-known for years. They both confirmed a consensual relationship in a joint statement released this morning, and they both admitted to failing to notify CNN’s owner WarnerMedia about the situation. Gollust was Zucker’s “closest colleague,” according to his resignation statement.

Gollust is a seasoned public relations executive who joined Zucker at CNN in 2013 after leaving a position in former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office. She is now CNN Worldwide’s EVP and Chief Marketing Officer.

Prior to entering politics, Gollust worked with Zucker at NBCUniversal for more than a decade in communications. According to insiders who knew them at the time, as Zucker rose through the ranks at NBCU, she continued to promote and advocate for Gollust. Gollust said her relationship with Zucker “changed during COVID,” and she regretted “that we didn’t disclose it at the right time,” despite remaining in her CNN post.

When, on the other hand, would the appropriate time have been? Several people familiar with the two executives, as well as CNN, disputed their timeline, claiming that Zucker and Gollust’s relationship began long before the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Zucker flatly denied any romantic relationship between Zucker and Gollust prior to one year ago, in response to a Variety request.

One source claimed, “It wasn’t even an open secret.” “It was just open,” says the source.

To that end, Radar published a tabloid piece about Zucker and Gollust dating in January, which included photos of the two at a public outing together at Madison Square Garden last year.

Katie Couric wrote about the “cozy arrangement” between the two in her memoir “Going There,” published in 2021. Zucker and Gollust were “joined at the hip,” according to Couric. Zucker lobbied Couric to hire Gollust to run publicity for her eponymous talk show “Katie,” on which Zucker was an executive producer, according to Couric. Couric said she met with Gollust in the Hamptons before the 2012 launch, but “Katie” had already taken the job.

Zucker and Gollust’s “relationship went on for years,” according to Megyn Kelly, a former Fox News and NBC News anchor who once took a meeting at CNN. (A Zucker spokesperson laughed into the phone when asked about Kelly’s tweet.)

One of CNN’s most well-known former anchors, Soledad O’Brien, also took to Twitter to comment on Zucker and Gollust’s feud. “I strongly advise you to Google the two parties and read the details about their long-standing relationship,” she wrote. “I’m sure company emails can easily determine if she’s lying in this statement,” O’Brien added in response to Gollust’s claim that the relationship began during the pandemic.

Again, it was a well-kept secret, and I hadn’t worked there in over eight years.”

Inside CNN, Gollust was described as a stalwart member of Zucker’s inner circle, attending meetings with him and accompanying him on business trips. After Zucker divorced his wife Caryn after a 21-year marriage in 2018, they noticed a more public shift in their interactions. Gollust divorced her tech executive husband William Hult in 2015, and their divorce was finalized in 2017. According to sources, Gollust began referring to her and Zucker as “we” in and around the CNN newsroom.

Their closeness had been well documented. According to property records reviewed by Variety, they not only worked side by side, but they also lived in the same building in New York City, becoming neighbors more than 15 years ago. Gollust and her then-husband Hult moved into the apartment directly above Zucker and his then-wife in the Upper East Side luxury building.

To be fair to Gollust, who is regarded as a capable executive by her peers and rivals, the relationship between a top communications or marketing executive and their CEO is inherently close — they become the custodian of an executive’s image and an architect of their success, according to those in similar roles.

Only a year ago, Gollust was being touted as Zucker’s heir apparent to run CNN if he were to step down after Discovery Inc. completes its expected WarnerMedia acquisition. Following a Wall Street Journal report in October 2020 about tensions between Zucker and WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, it was revealed that Kilar had removed Zucker’s oversight of CNN’s finance, human resources, and communications (Gollust’s department) operations.

The incident that prompted Zucker’s resignation on Wednesday occurred during an investigation into Chris Cuomo, the CNN anchor fired for counseling his disgraced brother Andrew, for whom Gollust worked as a spokesperson in 2013. Many CNN employees, on the other hand, are curious about the timing of the revelation.

“Cuomo wanted to burn the house down, as many disgruntled employees do,” one insider told Variety shortly after Zucker’s resignation, implying that Cuomo wanted to bring Zucker down with him and used their friendship as a tool.

Cuomo’s and CNN’s representatives both declined to comment on the story.

Cuomo’s lawyers sent a litigation hold letter to CNN shortly after the new year, roughly one month after he was fired from the network. The letter asked CNN to preserve any and all communications between Zucker, Gollust, and Andrew Cuomo. The legal letter’s purpose was to demonstrate Zucker and Gollust’s awareness of Chris Cuomo’s communication with his brother, not to reveal their personal relationship — but it’s possible that the letter prompted WarnerMedia to inquire about Zucker and Gollust’s relationship.

Because he was fired for cause, the younger Cuomo did not receive severance pay. However, a source close to Cuomo claims that Zucker threw him under the bus to save face after the Cuomo sexual harassment scandal exploded into a media spectacle that the network couldn’t ignore.

According to sources, Cuomo tried to reach out to CNN about a settlement, but his legal team was told that talks couldn’t begin until the network’s investigation was completed. There has been no discussion of a possible settlement.

Zucker’s resignation came as a complete shock to CNN employees on Wednesday morning.

“I’m devastated,” Don Lemon told Variety, speaking just moments after Zucker’s memo went out. “There are probably going to be a lot of nervous people at CNN because Jeff is really the glue there.”

S.E. Cupp, one of the network’s most outspoken voices, simply tweeted, “Stunned.”

“This was an incredible loss,” anchor Alisyn Camerota said on CNN’s air, shortly after Zucker resigned. “It is so regrettable how it happened. These are two consenting adults who are both executives, that they can’t have a private relationship? It feels wrong.”