Eight years after Ann Curry was ousted from the Today show, the journalist admitted in a new profile with ELLE that being let go from her job so suddenly “hurts really deeply.” Curry explained that close to a decade after she was fired as Matt Lauer’s co-host in 2012, she still doesn’t “really understand” why she was let go.
“I know I did nothing wrong. I know I was good at my job,” Curry explained. When Lauer was fired from the show in 2017 for inappropriate and allegedly predatory sexual behavior, she revealed she had long been aware of his alleged behavior and had gone to higher-ups about the issue, only to see no results. “They say where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she told Elle of the reasoning behind her being removed from the show. “You can read the tea leaves. But you know, I’m a fact-based reporter, so it’s hard for me to go out there, with something so close to the vest.”
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Curry continued that over the years when she became a confidante for women who had been allegedly harassed or worse by Lauer; she struggled with the thin line between helping and hurting. “I was in a position where, as a reporter, I was unable to talk about it. I was asked, ‘Please keep this to yourself.’ I kept that confidence, as I should have. That was tough,” she explained, choking up as she added, “I feel like I’ve done everything I should have done. …If I had to do it over again, and it meant going through it all over again, to accomplish the kind of reporting I’m really proud of, I would.” The bottom line years later is the sudden firing “still hurts” for Curry. “It honestly hurts really deeply, because I really think I did nothing wrong. …But I tell you, it was tough. It was hard to walk that line, to not add more [suffering].”
In the years since a number publicly accused Lauer of women of inappropriate sexual behavior, Curry said there has been “more than one” who have come to her about the former Today co-host, which she attributes to her “empathetic and compassionate” response. “I’m happy to be their friend,” she added. “This is a deep level of suffering, from what I’ve learned. They’re dealing with trauma that threatens to be lifelong.”
Lauer has denied the allegations of sexual assault against him, saying in a statement to the Washington Post in 2018, “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.”
