Chris Cuomo should have been fired long before he finally was, but now we know why Jeff Zucker was so slow in sacking the CNN host.

Cuomo was never going to go quietly and now he is demanding that CNN pay him $125 million dollars for canning him.

“As a result of Turner’s indefensible choice to unceremoniously fire him, Cuomo has been damaged in countless ways,” states a demand for arbitration filed Wednesday from Cuomo’s attorneys.

“Cuomo has had his journalistic integrity unjustifiably smeared, making it difficult if not impossible for Cuomo to find similar work in the future and damaging him in amounts exceeding $125 million, which includes not only the remaining salary owed under the Agreement, but future wages lost as a result of CNN’s efforts to destroy his reputation in violation of the Agreement,” the filing adds. “Cuomo now seeks to recover the full measure of his damages against Turner and CNN,” the filing says.

Cuomo’s team is saying that then CNN boss Jeff Zucker was doing the exact same thing in helping his brother, then NY Governor Andrew Cuomo fight off charges of sexual harassment.

In the filing it said that before Cuomo was terminated, Zucker at first claimed that he had been unaware of Cuomo’s discussions with Gov. Cuomo’s aides, when Zucker had done the same thing himself. After Cuomo’s termination, Zucker claimed that Cuomo had broken his word and that Cuomo misrepresented the extent of his support for his brother. Other CNN staff joined in the calculated campaign to smear Cuomo and destroy his reputation.

Zucker was fired just weeks after he canned Cuomo and it was Cuomo that helped bring him down.

Two people with giant egos and thinking they were teflon, ended up taking each other down.

My guess is that while Chris Cuomo will not walk away with $125 million bucks, CNN is going to and up paying him a hefty sum.

Stay tuned….

H/T Deadline