Longtime television journalist Joan Lunden is opening up about an unsettling moment early in her career, alleging that a former boss sexually harassed her while she was working at a New York television station in the 1970s.

Lunden, 75, writes about the incident in her new memoir, Joan: Life Beyond the Script, describing a situation she says left her feeling manipulated and later punished professionally when she rejected her superior’s advances.

Before becoming one of the most recognizable faces on television as co-anchor of Good Morning America from 1980 to 1997, Lunden worked as a young reporter at WABC in New York.

She was hired by the station in 1975 when she was just 25 years old.

According to her memoir, the alleged incident began when a superior invited her to what he described as a work-related social gathering on Fire Island. The trip, she was told, would be an opportunity to network and socialize with colleagues.

But when Lunden arrived, she quickly realized the event was not what she had been led to expect.

Instead of a larger work gathering, she discovered there were only two other people present: a reporter from WCBS and the reporter’s girlfriend.

Lunden writes that the situation quickly became clear to her.

Rather than a professional outing, the trip felt like an “overnight double date.”

“I was embarrassed that I’d been so naive as to let this situation unfold,” she writes in the book.

She also said she felt deeply offended by what she perceived as her boss’s assumption that she would simply go along with the situation.

“He assumed that I would just go along with it,” Lunden wrote.

The journalist does not identify the man by name in the memoir, instead referring to him with the pseudonym “Ted.”

According to Lunden, she confronted him about the situation directly.

“Ted, you know this is not what I signed up for,” she recalls telling him.

She writes that she attempted to assert herself while still navigating the delicate balance of confronting someone who held power over her career.

“I was trying to be strong but not too offensive, since he was my boss,” she explained.

Although she alleges that the man attempted to charm her during the trip, Lunden says she refused to share a bed with him and instead slept on a couch.

But the situation did not end when the trip was over.

After returning to work, Lunden claims her boss began quietly retaliating against her.

According to the memoir, he started “killing” her stories — preventing them from being aired.

The move not only hurt her professional opportunities but also reduced her income, since reporters were often paid based on the number of stories that aired.

Lunden writes that the experience was disturbing not just for the financial impact but for what it represented about the treatment of women in the workplace at the time.

“Even more disturbing than the loss of pay was having to put up with his attitude and what it said to me and other women who only wanted to work as equals,” she wrote.

Lunden says she eventually sought advice from her agent and a lawyer, who told her she potentially had grounds to sue for sexual harassment and discrimination.

When she informed her boss that she was considering legal action, she says his attitude changed.

According to Lunden, he apologized.

“I could see by the look on his face that my punch had landed,” she writes in the memoir.

The two ultimately returned to work, but the experience left a lasting impression on the young reporter.

Reflecting on the moment decades later, Lunden says the incident taught her an important lesson about standing up for herself.

“Sometimes, you just have to put on your big-girl pants and stand up for yourself,” she writes, “even if it feels incredibly uncomfortable and scary.”