Meredith Vieira ‘Heartbroken’ by Matt Lauer Scandal

Meredith Vieira sat alongside Matt Lauer every weekday morning for nearly five years as they hosted The Today Show on NBC.

So shen she learned about the misconduct allegations against her former co-worker, Vieira was “heartbroken.”

“It’s heartbreaking when you’re in the business and you know people, or you think you know people, and then to hear the stories come out,” she said during an interview with Andy Cohen on his SiriusXM program Radio Andy.

“I obviously was away from the Today show when all this happened with Matt. I was in L.A. actually when the news broke and [was] shocked, like everybody else,” she said. “My phone was going crazy in the middle of the night and I thought what is going on? And it was people in New York telling me put on the TV. Obviously it hadn’t played yet in Los Angeles.”

Despite Lauer’s accusations and subsequent firing, Vieira said she’s still a supporter of the #MeToo anti-sexual harassment movement.

“I really appreciate the #MeToo Movement. I think it’s long overdue. Clearly, there’s been a problem that has been ignored, and a lot of people have been hurt, and I think they deserve to have their truth told,” Vieira said. “What I hope happens from all of this is that we create a workplace where women and men will feel safe.”

After months of silence following his firing in November, Lauer released a statement via The Washington Post in late April.

“I have made no public comments on the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources that have been reported about me over these past several months. I remained silent in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment and to restore a small degree of the privacy they have lost,” Lauer said.

“But defending my family now requires me to speak up. I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC. 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.”

Several of Lauer’s other former co-anchors have spoken up since the controversy began.

Ann Curry came forward in April and said she reported Lauer’s behavior to NBC management on behalf of another co-worker.

“A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” Curry told The Washington Post. “She was afraid of losing her job… I believed her.

“I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women,” Curry said.

Katie Couric, whom Vieira took over for after she left the network in 2006, said in a recent interview with Wendy Williams she felt some of the accusations were “blown out of proportion,” particularly the button Lauer reportedly had under his desk that locked his office door.

“I don’t know what was happening, but a lot of NBC executives had those buttons that opened and closed doors,” Couric said. “It was really just a privacy thing.”