Tom Brokaw Denies Sexual Harassment Allegations

Tom Brokaw is firing back at one of his sexual harassment accusers, claiming she is a former colleague with a grudge who has had “trouble with the truth.”

The former NBC Nightly News anchor reportedly sent an email to a few NBC News coworkers criticizing Linda Vester, who spoke with Variety about Brokaw acting inappropriately toward her more than 20 years ago.

According to TMZ, Brokaw said today is the first day of his new life as an accused predator. He also slammed the news outlets reporting the story saying, “”I was ambushed and then perp walked … as an avatar of male misogyny, taken to the guillotine and stripped of any honor and achievement I had earned in more than a half century of journalism and citizenship.”

The reporter then went on to give a detailed account of his relationship with Vester, denying any verbal or physical attacks on her.

As far as the kiss Vesser claims he tried to force on her, Brokaw claims “that move she so vividly describes is NOT WHO I AM. Not in high school, college or thereafter.”

You can read the full, released by TMZ, statement here.

Vester said in an exclusive series of interviews with Variety that the legendary news anchor physically tried to force her to kiss him on two separate occasions. She also claims Brokaw groped her in a conference room and showed up at her hotel room uninvited.

Brokaw, who has been married to Meredith Auld since 1962 and never before been publicly accused of sexual harassment, denied Vester’s allegations.

“I met with Linda Vester on two occasions, both at her request, 23 years ago, because she wanted advice with respect to her career at NBC,” he said in a statement issued by NBC. “The meetings were brief, cordial and appropriate, and despite Linda’s allegations, I made no romantic overtures towards her, at that time or any other.”

Vester, who was 28 at the time, claims Brokaw once invited himself to her hotel room in New York City. “I felt powerless to say no,” she said. “He could ruin my career.”

At one point, she said, Brokaw put his hand behind her neck and gripped her head.

“Now let me show you how to give a real kiss,” he said, in Vester’s recollection, and jerked her head toward him. She remembers tensing her neck muscles and using all her strength to wriggle free and stand up. She wrote, “I said ‘Tom… I don’t want to do that with you.”

Brokaw sat silent for a few minutes, then finally said, “I think I should go.” Vester nodded vigorously.

Vester said he tried to make the interaction seem consensual when they spoke the next day. Vester disagreed and later met with another friend who corroborated in an interview that Vester was “rattled” by the episode and “disappointed” in Brokaw.

Another woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told the Washington Post that Brokaw acted inappropriately toward her in the 1990s, when she was a young production assistant and he was an anchor. He claims no such incident happened.

The accusations follow the termination of Matt Lauer, a two-decade veteran of the Today show, in November after a complaint was filed against him for inappropriate sexual behavior at work that reportedly occurred during the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.