NBC announced the termination of “Today” host Matt Lauer on Nov. 29, after receiving a complaint about “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer.” (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
NBC’s top news executives asked “Today” co-host Matt Lauer about reports that he had sexually harassed colleagues, but Lauer repeatedly denied them in the two weeks before he was fired, according to people at the network.
The executives, including the chairman and president of NBC News, were tipped by NBC employees, who had received media inquiries about Lauer’s alleged misconduct, according to a network executive. When the NBC managers confronted Lauer about the reports, he responded by saying he was “racking his brain and couldn’t think of anything at all,” said the executive, who was not authorized to speak for the record.
If the timeline is credible, it means that NBC News Chairman Andy Lack and President Noah Oppenheim were unaware of Lauer’s alleged misconduct until very recently. The network has maintained that its management was “unequivocally” in the dark about Lauer, who reportedly harassed colleagues for more than 15 years.
Lauer, 59, was fired Wednesday, roughly 36 hours after NBC News received its first formal harassment complaint from a network employee. (At least two more women have subsequently come forward.) He became the latest in a long line of prominent men in the news media, politics and entertainment whose careers have crashed during the past two months because of accusations of sexually inappropriate behavior.
An NBC News source said Friday that Lauer will not be paid past his last day of work, effectively Tuesday, when Lack informed him he was fired.
His $25-million-a-year contract, one of the most lucrative in the TV business, was supposed to run…The post NBC: Lauer said he was ‘racking his brain’ but came up blank when asked about harassment appeared first on FeedBox.