Anthony Cumia Accuses Former Partner Gregg “Opie” Hughes Of Driving Former Producer To Suicide In 2012

There doesn’t seem to be any end in sight to the feud between former radio partners Gregg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony Cumia. Earlier today, a Twitter user uploaded audio from the latest Anthony Cumia podcast in which he seems to indicate his former Opie and Anthony co-host in the death of former producer Steve Carlisi. In the short clip Cumia appears to be discussing Opie’s relationship with his current broadcast partner and Food Network host Carl Ruiz. He implies that Ruiz will eventually grow to resent Opie, following in the footsteps of former colleagues who are no longer on speaking terms with Hughes. According to Cumia that list includes former producers Rick Delgado, Erik Nagel and “everyone who still works there [Sirius XM]”. Hughes was fired from the satellite radio company in July of last year for allegedly videotaping his guest booker, Roland Campos, going to bathroom in what he maintains was a “prank”. After almost a year without work, Opie recently began a podcast on Westwood One that has already been plagued with setbacks and accusations of buying fake reviews on iTunes. Cumia’s own Compound media has also been plagued with controversy since it’s inception. It’s dodgy infrastructure, constantly increasing subscription fees and revolving door of talent coming-and-going has caused subscribers to become extremely vocal on social media. With both of them sliding into irrelevancy, it was only a matter of time before the first salvo was fired. But accusations of forcing a former colleague to kill himself? Talk about kicking things off with bang.

“…he killed Steve C!” – Anthony Cumia (TACS Episode 635)





Cumia’s tirade reaches it’s crescendo when he proclaims that Opie “…killed Steve C!” Carlisi served faithfully as the Executive Producer of Opie and Anthony for the entirety of their XM and Sirius run. Before that he was known as the owner of FoundryMusic.com, a site named for a band he fronted in the 90s but eventually became the most comprehensive digital archive for Opie and Anthony compiled at the time which was a herculean accomplishment in 1998. Carlisi’s ridiculous “Foundry Music” watermarks adorned everything on the site and were a running joke for many years.

Carlisi’s sudden separation with The Opie and Anthony Show in 2010 came as a surprise to many and was surrounded with much speculation. The most accepted version of events seems to be that at some point, Carlisi was asked to hand Foundry Music over or shut it down as there was a desire to centralize all of that archived footage. Steve allegedly asked to be compensated for the years of free web hosting and work that went into building Foundry. According to several sources close to the show, Opie had a lot to do with the decision for Carlisi to leave than Carlisi himself. Less than two years after he was fired from Sirius XM, Steve Carlisi took his own life at just 38 years old and his death was barely mentioned in a brief segment on the show. It was speculated for some time that his death was related to a gastric bypass surgery he had received however as time went on the real cause of death began to leak. He wasn’t given much fanfare by many in The Opie And Anthony Show staff after those brief mentions.





Gregg “Opie” Hughes is a man with a lot of character defects, a list of mistakes a mile long and you could probably fill the Superdome with people who rightfully hate his guts. He may have had something to do with Carlisi being fired. He might take a video tape of you having a bowel movement at work. He might stomp on a homeless man’s cake once in awhile. But for Anthony Cumia to say “Opie killed Steve C.” is an extremely libelous and malicious statement to make. With his troubled Compound Media on shaky ground, this may not be the best time to be on the receiving end of legal action from his former co-host. It feels like just yesterday when we at ROTC Media wrote an article about Cumia’s pattern of sinister behavior. It only took 2 days before I received bullying emails and direct messages demanding I take down the article lest I face the wrath of his 0-4 legal team. As someone who called my article “legally actionable”, one would assume he wouldn’t accuse his former co-host of killing a husband and father. Especially when you consider that only one of them has a documented history of violence. Hughes has not responded to a request for comment, and we are unable to request a comment from Cumia due to being in a state known as “obscurity”.





I smell a summer lawsuit. Now if only we could find out what Jim Norton did with that $60k.

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