Matt Lauer Releases Statement Months After ‘Today’ Firing
Fallen Today Show host Matt Lauer is defending himself against a new report about NBC ‘s alleged news anchor problem. Lauer, who was abruptly fired from NBC’s Today Show in November amid rampant sexual misconduct allegations made against him from female colleagues, is breaking his silence on what he calls “the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources” that have been reported about him over the past five months.
In a new statement to the Washington Post, Lauer explained that he has remained silent for the sake of his wife and children but that he feels it is now time for him to speak up after a new report detailed a disturbing new allegation.
“I remained silent in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment and to restore a small degree of the privacy they have lost,” Lauer said in a statement to the Post. “But defending my family now requires me to speak up.”
The 60-year-old former NBC star went on to say:
“I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father, and principal at NBC. However, I want to make it perfectly clear that any allegations or reports of coercive, aggressive or abusive actions on my part, at any time, are absolutely false.”
Ann Curry Says She Reported Matt Lauer for Sexual Harassment in 2012 on Behalf of a Colleague https://t.co/SZxisB6OE6
— People (@people) April 27, 2018
Matt Lauer’s statement comes amid a new report by the Post in which his former Today Show co-anchor An Curry claimed she reported him for sexual harassment on behalf of a frightened female colleague in 2012. Curry told the Post she approached two members of NBC’s management team to alert them to a problem with Matt Lauer after a female staffer confided to her that she was “sexually harassed physically” by the NBC newsman.
“A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” Curry said of the anonymous NBC employee. “She was afraid of losing her job … I believed her.”
Curry did not reveal her name of the woman to NBC management, but she specifically named Matt Lauer and warned the network to watch him.
“I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women,” Curry said.
Ann Curry left the Today Show in June 2012 and departed NBC for good in 2015 after 25 years with the network.
Matt Lauer was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, including a female colleague he worked with while reporting on the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. An insider told People Lauer had viewed the relationship as “consensual” and was “dumbfounded” by the accusation, but more allegations poured in. Lauer, who joined the Today Show in 1997, issued an apologetic statement shortly after his firing, admitting that there was “enough truth” in the allegations to cause him embarrassment.
Months later, as Matt Lauer denies that he was ever “coercive, aggressive or abusive” toward any of his female colleagues, NBC is facing a new scandal with Tom Brokaw. The 78-year-old NBC News icon has been accused of making unwanted advances to at least two female colleagues when he was an NBC News anchor. NBC correspondent Linda Vester has alleged she was “groped and assaulted” by Brokaw when she worked with him in the 1990s. Brokaw stepped down from the NBC News anchor chair in 2004 but still serves as a special correspondent for the network.
