In the aftermath of Matt Lauer‘s firing from NBC‘s Today show, a video of Meredith Vieira calling out Lauer for having a “huge bag of sex toys” in his office has resurfaced.
The cringeworthy moment from 2016 occurred when Lauer and Savannah Guthrie were guests on Vieira’s talk show. She put Lauer on blast by bringing up the bag she says she found back when she was co-hosting Today with him.
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Lauer quickly blamed the toys on a sex therapist who had appeared on Today, although Vieira and Guthrie don’t seem to be buying his memory of it.
The video is resurfacing after a former Today show staffer told Variety in a report published Wednesday afternoon that Lauer had given her a sex toy with explicit instructions on how he’d like to use it on her.
The resurfaced video involving Vieira and Lauer is particularly disturbing, considering another video resurfaced yesterday in which Lauer can be heard making lewd comments to Vieira during a 2006 interview.
The show had gone to commercial, but in at least one city, the local affiliate stayed on NBC‘s in-studio feed, and Lauer was seen sitting on the couch as Vieria got mic’d up.
“Pretty sweater,” Lauer told Vieria as she leaned over in front of him to grab some scripts. “Keep bending over like that. It’s a nice view.”
Judging from the video footage, which was obtained by TMZ, it was clear that Lauer’s comments could have been audible to everyone in the room.
Another anonymous Today 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.
Lauer, who was paranoid about being followed by tabloid reporters, reportedly even had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock his office door from the inside without getting up.
The 59-year-old anchor was fired from NBC after an unnamed woman filed a complaint with the network on Monday evening against Lauer for inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace. After his firing, two other women have reportedly filed complaints against Lauer. One anonymous woman claims he sexually assaulted her in his office in 2001.
NBC confirmed on Thursday that complaint filed against Lauer on Monday detailed sexual harassment that began during Olympic coverage of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and continued after the games.
