Steve Kroft has confirmed a report that he had an affair, but insists that it’s been over for a while.
The National Enquirer tabloid identified a woman named Lisan Goines as his mistress.
The tabloid obtained pictures of Kroft, 69, with Goines at the 5-star Essex Hotel in Manhattan, just blocks from where he lives with his wife Jennet Conant.
“I had an extramarital affair that was a serious lapse of personal judgment and extremely hurtful to my wife and family, and for that I have nothing but regret,” Kroft said in a statement to media outlets.
“My wife and I are committed to each other and are working hard to get past this, and consider it a private matter.”
Kroft is best known for being a host on the popular CBS news program “60 Minutes.”
Goines has been identified as a lawyer who graduated from Harvard.
Text messages obtained by the Enquirer reveal that Kroft told Goines he was trapped in a sexless marriage with fellow journalist Conant.
A source told the tabloid that Kroft and Goines met in 2011 at a bar in the St. Regis hotel, and he told her that “I have to see you again.”
Goines is also married.
“Lisan never wanted him to leave his wife, and she never contemplated leaving her husband and she told him it was best that it end,” the source said.
But after the affair ended, they still met for drinks.
Kroft once confronted former president Bill Clinton over his rumored extra-martial affairs. He has been with “60 Minutes” for 26 years, and with CBS for 31 years.
“This was a personal failure, not a professional one, and had no impact whatsoever on my job as a journalist,” Kroft said in the statement.
He and Conant were married in 1991 in Martha’s Vineyard, after meeting in Los Angeles the year prior.
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