Matt Lauer Tell-All Interview With Hoda Kotb on ‘Today’ Reportedly in the Works

Matt Lauer may be making his return to television sooner than the public expected. The disgraced former Today show host reportedly wants to return to his former morning show to give a tell-all interview.

“Matt knows it will take something really dramatic to change people’s opinion of him. An interview’s probably unwise, but he is desperate to be back on TV,” a source told Celebrity Insider.

Lauer also reportedly wants his replacement, Hoda Kotb, to interview him in this scenario.

“There is a reason Matt wants his old chum [Kotb] to do it. He is hoping that she will go easy on him. He thinks she is a soft touch,” the insider said.

The same source seems to think Kotb won’t go as easy on Lauer as he would like, saying Kotb “did not get where she is by being a pushover. She knows what Matt’s up to, and if this interview happens, she is going to approach him like any other subject of an investigation. Hoda’s a woman first, a journalist second, and Matt’s friend is a very, very distant third.”

NBC officially announced Kotb as Lauer’s replacement next to Savannah Guthrie on the Today show on Jan. 2 after ratings soared with her in the main anchor seat following Lauer’s firing.

Lauer was terminated by the news network in November after a female colleague filed a “detailed complaint” against him alleging “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” After Lauer was fired, two more NBC employees filed complaints against him with HR and multiple unnamed women accused him of sexual misconduct, ranging from sexual harassment to assault.

Lauer and Kotb have been in touch since Lauer’s firing, with Kotb telling Entertainment Tonight that Lauer congratulated her for the promotion via text message.

“I did hear from him, yeah, he texted me and he said congratulations and some really nice words, and it meant the world when I saw the text pop up,” Kotb said following her promotion. “My heart just went like, you know, it meant the world to see that.”

Kotb isn’t the only Today broadcaster Lauer’s in touch with. Willie Geist told ET on Tuesday that he, too, has communicated with Lauer via text.

“I’ve texted with him just on a personal level. It was his birthday the other day, his 60th birthday,” Geist said.

Adding that Lauer is “as good as he can be,” Geist noted, “He’s sort of reconnecting with his family and figuring everything out.”

The disgraced Today show anchor has since kept a low profile, staying out of the city at his home in the Hamptons with his three children and estranged wife, Annette Roque.