Former “Today Show” co-host Ann Curry warned NBC executives in 2012 about sexual harassment by Matt Lauer, five years before he was fired for misconduct, she told The Washington Post.
Curry said early this year on “CBS This Morning” that she was “not surprised by the allegations” after her one-time co-host was ousted for accusations of sexual harassment. But she’d never spoken publicly about what she knew of Lauer’s behavior.
Curry said she complained to two members of NBC management — whom she didn’t name — after a female staff member told her that Lauer had “sexually harassed her, physically,” the Post reported Thursday.
“A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” Curry said. “She was afraid of losing her job.”
“I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women,” said Curry. She said she did not reveal the woman’s name to management at the woman’s request.
The staffer confirmed Curry’s account to the Post, asking the newspaper not to reveal her name for fear of recrimination.
NBC told the Post that there was no record of a warning from Curry about Lauer.
Lauer was fired in November following complaints of sexual harassment.
He responded for the first time to the accusations in a statement for the Post article. He said he had remained silent “in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment” but must now “speak up.”
“I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC,” he said. “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,”
Curry left the “Today Show” in 2012 after working for the program for 15 years, and quit the network three years later. She told the Post that there was “pervasive verbal sexual harassment at NBC.”
The Post also reported Thursday that two women at the network, including NBC News war correspondent Linda Vester, accused famed broadcaster Tom Brokaw of sexual harassment. Brokaw denied the accusations.