Matt Lauer Accused of Sexual Harassment by Multiple Women (EXCLUSIVE)
As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,”
Matt Lauer
once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit
note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.
On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his
office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the
employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for
not engaging in a sexual act.
He would sometimes quiz female producers about who they’d slept with,
offering to trade names. And he loved to engage in a crass quiz game
with men and women in the office: “f—, marry, or kill,” in which he
would identify the female co-hosts that he’d most like to sleep with.
These accounts of Lauer’s behavior at NBC are the result of a two-month investigation by
Variety, with dozens of interviews with current and former staffers.
Variety
has talked to three women who identified themselves as victims of
sexual harassment by Lauer, and their stories have been corroborated by
friends or colleagues that they told at the time. They have asked for
now to remain unnamed, fearing professional repercussions.
On Wednesday,
NBC announced that Lauer was fired
from “Today.” It was a stunning move for a co-host who was widely
considered the crown jewel of the network’s news division, with a $25
million annual salary. The cause of his dismissal, according to sources,
was a detailed complaint from another current NBC employee about
inappropriate sexual conduct from Lauer that started on a trip at the
Sochi Olympics in 2014 and continued for several months.
The employee met with human resources at NBC on Monday night. In a
statement, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack called this the first complaint
about his behavior in over 20 years and acknowledged that it may not be
the last: “We were also presented with reason to believe that this may
not have been an isolated incident,” Lack said.
Several women told
Variety they complained to executives at
the network about Lauer’s behavior, which fell on deaf ears given the
lucrative advertising surrounding “Today.” NBC declined to comment. For
most of Lauer’s tenure at “Today,” the morning news show was No. 1 in
the ratings, and executives were eager to keep him happy.
It’s not clear if NBC is paying Lauer through the end of his
contract, which expires in 2018. Lauer couldn’t be reached for comment.
Insiders say that NBC was forced to act quickly after this week’s
complaint, given the severity of the accusations and the national
dialogue around sexual harassment that has ended the careers of Harvey
Weinstein, Charlie Rose, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K. and other prominent
men. Now, against a series of questions about the future of “Today,” a
troubling portrait has emerged of Lauer. In front of the camera, for
more than two decades, Lauer had positioned himself as America’s
squeaky-clean dad. But behind the scenes, Lauer was a different person.
Despite being married, Lauer was fixated on women, especially their
bodies and looks, according to more than 10 accounts from current and
former employees. He was known for making lewd comments verbally or over
text messages. He once made a suggestive reference to a colleague’s
performance in bed and compared it to how she was able to complete her
job, according to witnesses to the exchange. For Lauer, work and sex
were intertwined.
“There were a lot of consensual relationships, but that’s still a
problem because of the power he held,” says a former producer who knew
first-hand of these encounters. “He couldn’t sleep around town with
celebrities or on the road with random people, because he’s
Matt Lauer and he’s married. So he’d have to do it within his stable, where he exerted power, and he knew people wouldn’t ever complain.”
Lauer, who was paranoid about being followed by tabloid reporters,
grew more emboldened at 30 Rockefeller Center as his profile rose
following Katie Couric’s departure from “Today” in 2006. His office was
in a secluded space, and he had a button under his desk that allowed him
to lock his door from the inside without getting up. This afforded him
the assurance of privacy. It allowed him to welcome female employees and
initiate inappropriate contact while knowing nobody could walk in on
him, according to two women who were sexually harassed by Lauer.
According to sources, the sexual harassment extended to when Lauer
traveled on assignment for NBC. Several employees recall how he paid
intense attention to a young woman on his staff that he found
attractive, focusing intently on her career ambitions. And he asked the
same producer to his hotel room to deliver him a pillow, according to
sources with knowledge of the interaction.
This was part of a pattern. According to multiple accounts, independently corroborated by
Variety,
Lauer would invite women employed by NBC late at night to his hotel
room while covering the Olympics in various cities over the years. He
later told colleagues how his wife had accompanied him to the London
Olympics because she didn’t trust him to travel alone.
The spotlight on Lauer intensified earlier this month, when his
longtime booker Matt Zimmerman was fired over sexual harassment
complaints. The two were very close, and Lauer had promoted Zimmerman to
a high executive position and offered him a powerful perch.
Lauer’s conduct was not a secret among other employees at “Today,” numerous sourc
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