Irony: Lauer had a part in leaking the tape where Trump made a locker room joke about ‘grabbing pussy’. Apparently, Lauer really did.
From Fox News
On the same day the giant Christmas tree is being lit outside NBC studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City, the network dumped one of its biggest stars.
“Today” show co-host Matt Lauer was fired Wednesday due to inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, an incident “Today” honchos said they learned about just two days ago.
Lauer’s stunned co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was joined by Hoda Kotb to announce the news on “Today.”
“This is a sad morning here at ‘Today’ and at NBC News,” Guthrie said before reading a note from NBC News Chairman Andy Lack.
“Dear colleagues, on Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” Lack’s statement read. “It represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment.”
The statement said this is the first complaint regarding Lauer’s behavior the company has received “in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News.”
As the co-host of NBC’s “Today,” Matt Lauer once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present. It included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, which left her mortified.
On another day, he summoned a different female employee to his office, and then dropped his pants, showing her his penis. After the employee declined to do anything, visibly shaken, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
He would sometimes quiz female producers about who they’d slept with, offering to trade names. And he loved to engage in a crass quiz game with men and women in the office: “fuck, marry or kill,” in which he would identify the female co-hosts that he’d most like to sleep with.
These accounts of Lauer’s behavior at NBC are the result of a two-month investigation by Variety, with dozens of interviews with current and former staffers. Variety has talked to three women who identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment by Lauer, and their stories have been corroborated by friends or colleagues that they told at the time. They have asked for now to remain unnamed, fearing professional repercussions.
……Several women told Variety they complained to executives at the network about Lauer’s behavior, which fell on deaf ears given the lucrative advertising surrounding “Today.” NBC declined to comment. For most of Lauer’s tenture at “Today,” the morning news show was No. 1 in the ratings, and executives were eager to keep him happy.
…… His office was in a secluded space, and he had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock his door from the inside without getting up. This afforded him the assurance of privacy. It allowed him to welcome female employees and initiate inappropriate contact while knowing nobody could walk in on him, according to two women who were sexually harassed by Lauer.
Earlier this month, an NBC senior executive was fired for the same reason.
Some of Lauer’s notable ‘achievements’:
He put a sickening smiley face on the Chinese communist regime during the 2008 Olympics. He glorified the Soviet-era tyranny during the 2014 Olympics at Sochi.
He filled in for the likes of Chris Matthews when Obama needed fellatio during interviews.
He was also a notable member of Hillary’s corrupt Clinton Foundation.
Good riddance, Lauer.
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