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UPDATED: Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, Matt Lauer’s former “Today” co-hosts, came out in support of the former NBC employee who is making stunning rape allegations against him in a new book by Ronan Farrow, with Guthrie saying, “We support her and any woman who comes forward with claims.”
The “Today” co-anchors were responding to a story in Variety, which obtained a copy of Farrow’s book, “Catch and Kill,” and reported on new details Farrows offers of the allegations that led to Lauer’s firing in November 2017. Farrow interviewed Brooke Nevils, who said that Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room while the two were in Russia to cover the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
“This is shocking and appalling, and I honestly don’t even know what to say about it,” Guthrie said Wednesday. “I know that it isn’t easy for our colleague Brook to come forward. It’s not easy now.”
Overnight, troubling new allegations about former TODAY anchor Matt Lauer were revealed from journalist Ronan Farrow’s soon-to-be-released book “Catch and Kill.” @MorganRadford reports the details. pic.twitter.com/7ooO3oAJ5X
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) October 9, 2019
Kotb explained the shock and pain that she and others at NBC were experiencing after hearing reports about the rape allegations.
“You feel like you’ve known someone for 12 years,” Kotb added. “You feel like you know them inside and out. And then all of a sudden a door opens up and it’s a part of them you didn’t know.”
“We don’t know all the facts in all this,” Kotb said. “These are not allegations of an affair. These are allegations of a crime. That’s what’s shocking to all of us who have sat with Matt here for many many years.”
The Variety report also prompted Lauer to come forward and defend himself for the first time in more than a year. In a 1400-word “open letter,” issued by his attorney, Lauer insisted that there was nothing forceful and aggressive about his encounter with Nevils in the hotel, Page Six reported.
Lauer acknowledged that he and Nevils had sex in the hotel room, but that it was consensual. He also said it was “the first of many sexual encounters between us over the next several months.”
“There was absolutely nothing aggressive about that encounter,” Lauer wrote. “Brooke did not do or say anything to object. She certainly did not cry. She was a fully enthusiastic and willing partner.”
Lauer continued: “At no time did she behave in a way that made it appear she was incapable of consent. She seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do. The only concern she expressed was that someone might see her leaving my room. She embraced me at the door as she left.”
Lauer accused Nevils of making “categorically false” allegations against him because she was unhappy about how their affair abruptly ended. He also suggested she was driven by money and shopping a book deal around.
Nevils is the same woman whose complaint against Lauer led to his firing, according to Variety. Nevils’ identity and details about her allegations have not been previously known to the public. They are being revealed for the first time in Farrow’s book, Variety explained.
Nevils told Farrow she was assigned to work in Sochi with former “Today” co-anchor Meredith Vieira, who had been brought back to the show to do Olympics coverage.
Nevils explained that the attack happened after a night of drinking at a hotel bar. She said she went to Lauer’s hotel room to pick up her press credentials, and then returned when Lauer invited her back shortly after.
Nevils told Farrow she “had no reason to suspect Lauer would be anything but friendly based on prior experience.” But when she returned to Lauer’s hotel room, she said the “Today” host, wearing a T-shirt and boxers, pushed her against the door and kissed her.
Lauer then pushed her onto the bed, “flipping her over, asking if she liked anal sex,” Farrow writes, according to Variety. Nevills said she was trying to tell Lauer she didn’t want anal sex, when he “just did it.”
Farrow reported that the encounter was excruciatingly painful. “It hurt so bad,” she said. “I remember thinking, Is this normal?” Nevills told Farrow she wept silently into the pillow, while Lauer asked her if she liked it.
Nevils told Farrow: “It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent. It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”
Sources close to Lauer emphasized that she sometimes initiated contact,” Farrow writes. Nevils told Farrow she was afraid Lauer would end her career, so she continued to have “transactional” sexual encounters with him.
“What is not in dispute is that Nevils, like several of the women I’d spoken to, had further sexual encounters with the man she said assaulted her,” Farrow wrote.
Nevils said she told many people about her encounters with Lauer, including colleagues and superiors at NBC. But nothing happened until the fall of 2017, when Nevils said she told Viera, who became “distraught” and urged her to go to NBC Universal human resources with a lawyer.
Farrow wrote that NBC executives continued to downplay the allegations internally even after Lauer’s firing. Executives, including Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC News who personally fired Lauer, emphasized that the incident between Nevils and Lauer hadn’t been “criminal” or an “assault.”
For his part, Lauer in 2018 released a statement in which he conceded he “acted inappropriately,” but denied ever forcing himself on anyone.
“I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC,” Lauer said. “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.”
In May 2018, NBC released the findings of an internal investigation which it said concluded there was “no evidence” that any senior executives at the network were aware of complaints about Lauer until just before he was fired.
After Lauer was fired, three other women also made allegations against Lauer, the Washington Post reported. Some of the women told Variety that they had complained about him to senior managers, but their complaints were ignored.
The Washington Post also reported that Ann Curry, another of Lauer’s former “Today” co-hosts, approached two members of NBC’s management team after an NBC female staffer told her she was “sexually harassed physically” by Lauer.
Farrow’s book will be released Oct. 15.
