Rumor has it former Good Morning America producer Ben Sherwood was pressured into giving up an appearance on his former show — because out outrage from his own former staff.

Sherwood has withdrawn from a slot he had lined up Monday, a tipster told us, even though the GMA appearance would have been a huge opportunity to plug his new book, "The Survivors Club," about people who survive "devastating" medical diagnoses.

UPDATE: As of Thursday afternoon, Sherwood was still slated to appear on GMA, according to ABC PR. So unless something has changed since then, he should still be on the show this Monday. (We've changed the headline slightly.)

We'd heard previously that some GMA-ers were unhappy about Sherwood's book deal. The beef? The former exec producer left the ABC morning show in 2006 amid a ratings slump, and purportedly took with him bookers' contact info on "survivors" who would be perfect for his book project. He didn't share any of th advance with his ex-staff — well, duh — but also didn't even thank them in the acknowledgements, according to our tipster, instead giving shout outs to other well-off network executives.

Staff filed formal complaints to ABC News execs, to no avail — until now, apparently.

Copying a rolodex from an old job for use in a book is par for the course, otherwise far fewer works of nonfiction would ever get written. Cribbing from colleagues' address books, however, is in bad taste, particularly if you're exploiting the contacts for profit.

Still, we're a little surprised ABC generals listened to grumbling from front-line troops in this case. Maybe Sherwood isn't on the best terms with them, either.