Staff gaffe leaks Time cover

TIME’S Person of the Year is a notoriously closely guarded secret, with the magazine’s staffers being sworn to secrecy about who will be chosen or even who is being considered.

So imagine their horror when the iconic magazine’s Web site accidentally leaked the Person of the Year cover the night before its big reveal on the “Today” show.

Page Six was told that on Tuesday — the night before Time Editor-in-Chief Edward Felsenthal was due to sit down with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb to make the much-anticipated announcement — a lowly staffer accidentally included the cover in an online gallery that was supposed to only in- clude past Person of the Year covers.

The much lauded cover — which celebrates the “Silence Breakers” who have outed sexual predators — was the very first slide in a 91slide gallery entitled “See Every Person of the Year Cover Ever.” Unfortunately, the title was a little more literal than intended.

But the magazine caught a lucky break — because only one eagle-eyed Twitter user and a Chinese TV network called China Global picked up the cover before the official announcement on Wednesday morning.

Of course, President Trump had already done his part to blow the surprise by claiming to have turned down the opportunity to be named as the Person of the Year for the second year in a row. A week and a half before it went on newsstands, Trump tweeted, “Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named ‘Man (Person) of the Year,’ like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”

The magazine responded by saying, “The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year.” In the end, Trump was the runner-up. The cover featured activists in the “#MeToo” movement against sexual misconduct including Ashley Judd, Taylor Swift and former Uber exec Susan Fowler.