Former “Today” show co-host Ann Curry claims she told two members of NBC management in 2012 they “had a problem” with Matt Lauer “and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women.” The revelations by Curry were part of a Washington Post story on how the NBC organization will handle new bombshell sexual harassment accusations against former news anchor Tom Brokaw.
Curry claimed to WaPo that an NBC female staffer approached her in 2012 and asked for her help with Lauer. “She was afraid of losing her job,” said Curry, adding, “I believed her.” She would not name the managers she spoke to and NBC claims it has no record of her warning. A non-disclosure agreement has made Curry previously reluctant to talk about her experiences at NBC.
She left the company in 2015 after being shunted aside later in 2012 on “Today,” with some blaming Lauer for the move. She now claims that there was “pervasive verbal sexual harassment at NBC.” She worked at “Today” for 15 years, co-anchoring “Today” in 2011 and 2012. However, Curry said she understands reticence to report harassment.
“This is one of the problems when we talk about corporations with an HR department being under leadership of someone who might or might not be accused,” she said. “How are they going to complain about it if they are accusing someone who is overseeing the department that is supposed to protect them. Do you have a system that allows those who feel they have been victimized to air their complaints without fear they will lose their jobs? I don’t know a company that does.”
WaPo also reported several other incidents with NBC executives that have not been previously reported, including two regarding Lauer. One woman claimed he exposed himself in his office and requested that she touch him, while another claimed he had sex with her in the middle of the day in his office.
(Other NBC staffers who support Lauer claimed all his relationships were consensual, but would not speak for attribution to WaPo).
In a statement to WaPo Wednesday, Lauer said, “I have made no public comments on the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources that have been reported about me over these past several months . . . 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. But defending my family now requires me to speak up. “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.”
