The longtime "Today" host was fired by NBC Tuesday evening.
By Sarah Gangraw — Written on Nov 30, 2017
Longtime Today show anchor Matt Lauer was fired by NBC Tuesday night for sexual misconduct toward a female subordinate in 2014.
A complaint was filed against Lauer which prompted an investigation into his off-screen behavior in the workplace.
“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” NBC News president Andrew Lack wrote in a memo Wednesday morning. “It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment.”
An insider told Page Six that the complaint was about an incident that occurred at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
“An NBC staffer come forward with a claim that Matt sexually assaulted her at the Olympics,” the source said. “There have been rumors about Matt having affairs with subordinates at NBC for years, but those were believed to be consensual. This incident in Rio was not.”
It has been the only complaint against the news host in the two decades he’s been on the Today show, but Lack said there is “reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
“The victim says she has evidence that this has also happened to other women, but so far we don’t have evidence of that,” an NBC insider told PageSix.
Savannah Guthrie announced Lauer’s termination on the show this morning, saying she was “devastated” and had learned of his firing just before going on air.
“All we can say is we are heartbroken; I’m heartbroken,” Guthrie said. Lauer’s colleagues were still visibly trying to process his termination during the show.
Guthrie said “this reckoning” was “long overdue and it must result in workplaces where all women — all people — feel safe and respected."
Lauer didn't respond publicly yet but Trump did.
Mr. President went to his favorite outlet, Twitter, and roped Lauer’s firing together with NBC’s “fake news.”
After his termination broke, Variety published an exclusive piece on a two-month investigation that detailed multiple accounts of sexual harassment at the hands of Lauer by his former female employees. Including claims that he gave a colleague a sex toy as a present and that he summoned another employee into his office and showed her his penis.
She said he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act with him.
Since his firing, multiple reports, videos and stories about other times Lauer has been “inappropriate” have resurfaced.
1. When his wife Annette Roque filed for divorce in 2006.
Daily Mail
Lauer’s wife of 19 years, Annette, had filed to divorce him and accused him of “cruel and inhumane” behavior. She claimed her husband was putting her mental health and physical well-being in danger and that he didn't agree with the way she parented, according to the documents.
Although Annette withdrew the request to divorce Lauer, they live separately.
2. A video of Lauer without pants.
He says, “Drink it in, ladies!” when his co-workers walk in and see him wearing no pants. They respond with things like, “Again, Matt?” and “It’s the third time this week!”
The skit was part of a musical special in 2014, but it’s not so funny now after recent events.
3. The rumors Lauer had an affair with his co-star, Natalie Morales.
Daily Mail
In 2016 Lauer had to publicly dispute the rumors circulating the media that he had an affair with Natalie Morales.
The rumors came out during his second marriage and his first wife, Nancy Alspaugh, allegedly said, “I was not shocked to hear that but it’s very sad.”
Both Lauer and Morales publicly stated the rumors were false.
4. He’s been accused of being sexist during interviews.
When interviewing Marry Barra, CEO of General Motors, he asked if she could balance being a good mother while running her company.
Barra came back with force, saying he is in the same situation as a father, making his inquiry misogynistic.
Lauer tried to defend himself, saying, “If a man had publicly said something similar after accepting a high-level job, I would have asked him exactly the same thing.”
5. He used to pinch Katie Couric’s butt.
Katie Couric appeared on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in 2012 and said Lauer can get touchy.
“He pinches me in the ass a lot,” Couric said.
6. That time he made jokes about Savannah Guthrie’s pregnancy on live TV.
While his co-host Guthrie was pregnant, Lauer cracked some unnecessary jokes about the size of her feet and compared her pregnancy to Natalie Portman’s, who was a guest on the show.
They were trying on some of the newest Nike shoes and Lauer’s pair didn’t quite fit. He passed them over to Guthrie and said, “"Here's a size 11 for ya! No shame!"
We all know that a woman’s body changes when she goes through the pregnancy process. There’s no need for jokes.
But he continued, describing the shoes to Guthrie as if her belly prevented her from seeing them and later told Portman she had small feet, “no offense to Savannah.”
7. When Tom Cruise called him “glib.”
If you’re not familiar with the word, glib means fluent and voluble but insincere and shallow.
While interviewing Cruise on the Today show, they got into it while debating Scientology and psychiatry. During the discussion, Cruise said Lauer was glib while talking about antidepressants.
8. He allegedly back-stabbed Ann Curry.
It is rumored he was the main reason his ex-co-host Ann Curry was forced to leave the Today show. He made it clear that he didn't like her and was unhappy working with her.
New York Magazine said that Lauer made it obvious he wasn't a fan of Curry at all and “wasn't trying hard enough to make it work with Curry because he simply didn't like her.” They hardly spoke off-screen.
She later broke down in tears on the show announcing her exit.
9. He’s been under investigation for months.
"I, and other reporters, have been aware of several women who have come forward privately in the past few months," Yashar Ali from HuffPost said in a tweet. "Even before Weinstein. They weren't willing to go public though...they were terrified of Matt. Matt Lauer put the fear of God into these women. He had relationships with reporters outside NBC that he cultivated just for this purpose. They knew that."
The New York Times, Huffington Post, Variety, and executives at NBC have been looking into Lauer’s past and have been finding some disturbing things, though the details haven’t been released yet.