After Matt Lauer was fired from the Today Show on Wednesday following allegations investigated by NBC of sexual misconduct reported by a single co-worker, Variety published an extensive report outlining a long list of gross misconduct and abusive behaviors by Lauer.
With reports emerging from a two-month long investigation, the allegations came from dozens of current and former staffers of the NBC morning show.
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As much as Lauer’s firing initially shocked viewers across the country, these new accusations are far more explosive. One former colleague told reporters that Lauer gave her a sex toy as a gift. Along with it, he included a lewd note, detailing how he’d like to use it on her.
Another anonymous staffer recounted a story where Lauer summoned her to his office, and pulled his pants down as soon as she arrived, purposefully exposing himself to her. The staffer refused to do anything about Lauer’s crude gesture and says he then scolded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
Sources at Today said that Lauer was a big fan of the “game” FMK, where he would ask co-workers who they’d marry, who they’d sleep with, and who they wouldn’t. Lauer was reportedly very vocal about which of his female co-stars he would and wouldn’t like to have sexual contact with.
Reports say he was known to quiz female producers about who they’d slept with at random, and offered to “trade names” for news about who he’d been intimate with.
The report cites three women as victims of Lauer’s harassment, with dozens of other employees of the show corroborating their stories. Some of the women said they’d spoken to executives at NBC in the past, yet nothing had come of it. Lauer was a big asset for the network, and they paid him $25 million annually to keep him happy.
Still, the report that took Lauer down this morning was filed through the Human Resources department at NBC News and went through all the proper channels. Chairman Andrew Lack released a statement, saying: “while it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”