Ann Curry on Matt Lauer’s Firing: ‘Battle Lines Are Now Clear’

Matt Lauer’s former Today co-anchor Ann Curry declined to say anything directly about his departure from the show. “I’m still really processing it,” she told PEOPLE in an interview earlier Wednesday. However, she did offer her thoughts about the growing trend of terminations and resignations surrounding men who abuse their power.

“The women’s movement got us into the workplace,” Curry told reporters, “but it didn’t make us safe once we got there, and the battle lines are now clear. We need to move this revolution forward and make our workplaces safe. Corporate America is quite clearly failing to do so, and unless it does something to change that, we need to keep doing more ourselves.”

Such strong language comes as no surprise from Curry. The 61-year-old journalist anchored the Today show beside Lauer for just over a year after Meredith Vieira resigned. Her departure from the show in 2012 was steeped in confusion and controversy.

Curry left for a job as the international correspondent for NBC News; however, the show was suffering from a huge dip in ratings at the time, and some believed she was being reassigned against her will, in an effort to make the show more popular again.

In her emotional on-air farewell, Curry said, “To those of you who saw me as a ground-breaker, I am sorry that could not carry the ball across the finish line. But, man, I did try.”

Curry left NBC in 2015 to found her own multi-platform media company. Her interview today was planned before news about Lauer’s misconduct broke. Curry is promoting a docuseries called We’ll Meet Again on PBS. Curry is the host and executive producer of the series, which is set to air sometime in early 2018.

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