NEW YORK, Dec 1 — Longtime Today show host Matt Lauer apologised for what he called his “troubling flaws” in a statement read out on the NBC morning show yesterday, a day after the network fired him for inappropriate sexual behaviour.
As his 20 years as a fixture of US morning television came to an abrupt end, Lauer found himself among the growing ranks of powerful men in US entertainment, politics and media to be felled in recent months by accusations of sexual misconduct.
Lauer said in his statement that some of the accusations against him were “untrue or mischaracterised”, without explaining further, but said that “there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.” Lauer, 59, is married.
He was fired after a female colleague complained to NBC officials on Monday evening about a pattern of inappropriate sexual behaviour that began while they were on assignment at the 2014 Sochi winter Olympics in Russia, according to NBC statements.
Since then, at least two more women have gone to NBC with similar complaints against Lauer, the Today show reported yesterday.
None of the women have been publicly identified.
“Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort,” Lauer said in the statement, which was read by his former co-host Savannah Guthrie at the start of yesterday’s broadcast.
“It is now my full-time job,” the statement said.
“The last two days have forced me to take a very hard look at my own troubling flaws.”
Lauer said he was “truly sorry” for pain he had caused.
Reuters has not independently verified the accusations.
NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack said the network had never received a complaint about Lauer’s conduct prior to Monday but that “we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
Jeff Zucker, a former Today show producer who rose up the ranks to become president of NBCUniversal, said he had never heard any complaints against Lauer during his time at the network, where he spent 25 years before joining CNN as president in 2013.
“There was never a suggestion of that kind of deviant, predatory behaviour, not even a whisper of it,” Zucker said during the Business Insider IGNITION 2017 conference in New York yesterday. He called the allegations against Lauer “incredibly disturbing” and sad.
Lauer was promoted to a host of the Today show in 1997 and went on to become one of NBC’s highest-paid personalities, reportedly being paid US$20 million (RM81.79 million) a year.
The network, owned by Comcast Corp, did not respond to questions about its plans for replacing Lauer.
Media analysts say his sudden departure could send some viewers to morning-news rivals, at least in the short term. Today dominated the morning rating wars for much of Lauer’s tenure but it was overtaken in 2012 by Good Morning America on Walt Disney Co’s ABC network. — Reuters
