Matt Lauer was reportedly seen dining in Manhattan with a supportive senior Today show producer.
Sources told Page Six Lauer and Today producer Deborah Kosofsky were seen at the Upper East Side restaurant East Pole. Kosofsky arrived at around 6:30 p.m. to talk about “summer plans. They suggested Lauer should be spending more time outside the Hamptons, where he has been spending most of his time since NBC News fired him in November.
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“They were in the middle of the room,” one source told Page Six. “They were talking about vacation spots.”
The source said they overheard talk of a move “to the mountains.”
Another source said they only talked about Lauer’s children, since the two have “been good friends for 30 years.”
Lauer has been trying to get his Hamptons Estate off his hands for months. In March, he dropped the price from $14.9 million to $12.75 million. He has reportedly owned it since 1999, the year he married his now-estranged wife Annette Roque. She reportedly owns an adjoining home, which she bought for $935,000 around the same time.
The disgraced morning show anchor also has a farm in New Zealand.
Lauer has reportedly been attempting a comeback, Page Six reported in April. Friends told Page Six Lauer is “ready to restart his life” now that his marriage to Roque is over.
Lauer was fired in November for alleged sexual harassment. Last month, NBC News released the findings of an internal investigation, which found that human resources never “received complaints” about Lauer’s alleged behavior before Nov. 27, 2017. The investigation included interviews with nearly 70 current and former employees, including top Today executives.
The women who accused Lauer “confirmed they did not tell their direct manager or anyone else in a position of authority about their sexual encounters with Lauer,” the report reads. “Current and former members of NBC News and Today Show leadership, as well as News HR, stated that they had never received a complaint about inappropriate workplace behavior by Lauer, and we did not find any contrary evidence.”
Other employees said they “heard or read rumors about Lauer’s personal life,” but many thought the rumored extramarital affairs were with women outside NBC.
Lauer said he “clearly” disagreed with some parts of the report.
“On November 29, 2017, I was terminated by NBC after admitting to past relationships with co-workers. A day later I took responsibility for those relationships, apologized to the people I hurt and promised to begin the process of repairing the damage I had caused my family,” Lauer said. “I have worked every day since then to honor that promise.”
