Matt Lauer Breaks Silence, Says He is “Truly Sorry”
“Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”
NBC fired Today show anchor Matt Lauer on Wednesday after a very long meeting with a female that lodged sexual harassment accusations against him. After that, numerous other accusations surfaced.
He remained silent all day, but broke his silence Thursday morning. From CNN:
“There are no words to express my sorrow and regret for the pain I have caused others by words and actions,” Lauer said in a statement provided to CNN. “To the people I have hurt, I am truly sorry. As I am writing this I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC.”
“Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I regret that my shame is now shared by the people I cherish dearly,” Lauer said.
He continued:
“Repairing the damage will take a lot of time and soul searching and I’m committed to beginning that effort,” Lauer said. “It is now my full time job. The last two days have forced me to take a very hard look at my own troubling flaws. It’s been humbling. I am blessed to be surrounded by the people I love. I thank them for their patience and grace.”
NBC met with one accuser on Monday for hours with her lawyer. She proceeded to give details what Lauer did to her. The New York Times spoke with the women, but she refused to give details. All we know is that the harassment started at the Sochi Olympics in 2014 and continued after that.
NBC fired him and said they had reason to believe this wasn’t an isolated incident. Gee, could that because HUMAN RESOURCES RECEIVED COMPLAINTS ABOUT HIM BEFORE?!!?
Later in the day, Variety dropped a story with even more details of accusations. These included gifting a sex toy to a colleague and told her graphically how he wanted to use it on her. Another employee said he reprimanded her because she refused to engage in a sex act with him after he dropped his pants. He also had a special lock on his door:
Lauer, who was paranoid about being followed by tabloid reporters, grew more emboldened at 30 Rockefeller Center as his profile rose following Katie Couric’s departure from “Today” in 2006. 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.
The New York Times reported this accusation (emphasis mine):
While traveling with Mr. Lauer for a story, she said, he asked her inappropriate questions over dinner, like whether she had ever cheated on her husband. On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”
In 2001, the woman said, Mr. Lauer, who is married, asked her to his office to discuss a story during a workday. When she sat down, she said, he locked the door, which he could do by pressing a button while sitting at his desk. (People who worked at NBC said the button was a regular security measure installed for high-profile employees.)
The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, bent her over a chair and had intercourse with her. At some point, she said, she passed out with her pants pulled halfway down. She woke up on the floor of his office, and Mr. Lauer had his assistant take her to a nurse.
The woman told The Times that Mr. Lauer never made an advance toward her again and never mentioned what occurred in his office. She said she did not report the episode to NBC at the time because she believed she should have done more to stop Mr. Lauer. She left the network about a year later.
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Deppravity, thy name is Lauer.
One line from Lauer’s apology that made my stomache curdle was the line about how, as he was writing this “apology” he realized the “depth of damage” he has trailed behind him.
Bollocks! Here is why. For how many years has he covered the Anthony Weiner story, a guy whose conduct is not that far removed from Lauer’s own (seedy tweets/texting, exposure of genitals etc)? And this is where Huma Abedin’s politics are irrelevant…Weiner destroyed their marriage. His conduct had a huge effect on her and their child. Forget the politics-Lauer HAD to have seen that. Yet he continued his behaviour. So it is NOT the behaviour that has caused the regrets and embarassment. It is being caught and exposed.
Furthermore, predators such as Lauer (as others in the media and Congress) were surrounded by enablers. Colleagues…men and women alike…knew that these guys are dangerous to allow near women, yet they remained silent. They failed to report, advise or give anyone a “heads-up” or any other kind of warning to allow other women to be careful. So they enabled further victimization of women while, hypocritically, alleging a fake Republican “War on Women”. These people need to be exposed…starting with, in my opinion, George Stephanopolous who did so much to enable Bill Clinton to abuse women with impunity.
Third, when will these people be called out for their other hypocrisies…ridiculing Mitt Romney for his “binders of women” and excoriating Mike Pence for refusing to be alone with women? These decent men suffered merciless attacks for their naivete and decency mounted by these scuzzy politicians and reporters and their enablers.
Finally, I want to say that these guys hold themselves out as our “moral betters”. They are the ones with the platform to comment…unresponded to…about our societal issues and to justify things which normal people see as decay. They laugh at the concept of “immorality”. They have defended the indefensible, clearly, so as to avoid putting the mirror on themselves. In so doing, in my opinion, they have done irreparable harm to our social fabric.
These quick firings are a clear signal that their employers knew about the bad behavior long before it became public.
Probably, but couldn’t the employers also be making a business decision that risk of unjustly terminating the guys, and the resulting contractual liability, is by far outweighed by the bad PR of not firing, given the anti-sex-abuse shark feeding frenzy of the day.
“There are no words to express my sorrow and regret that I was fired for being a dirtbag sexual predator”
There, FIFY.
So much for “speaking truth to power.” This man is a criminal sociopath.
Well, well, well.
The Garrison Keillor firing, which comes with a singularly uninformative statement as to the alleged conduct, is already being used as “proof” of some sort of psychotic break on the Left, soon to be followed by mob action.
Somebody made a handy list of the pervert stories
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/7glvfx/thursday_morning_magathread_the_sexually/
I see it differently. My workplaces in my entire working life have been loaded with men. Further, the vast majority of females in my workplaces were in the lower-level jobs.
I was harassed by one man, and I handled it by getting a better job, and giving a candid exit interview. He had been my supervisor: he was demoted to my position and my chair. My next job was a lot more fun, and a great career move for me. I do not ever intend to name this guy.
Most of the rest of the men were decent, fun-loving people that were enjoyable work companions. The ones who weren’t were simple jerks. Nobody else harassed me.
The Lauer, Weinstein, Conyers and Franken cases, and most of the rest, have to do with long-simmering resentments over awful behavior that were never addressed.
I think we have the sizzling, continuing hypocrisy of the Democratic Party from the last election campaign to thank for the latest uprising. The Democratic Party and its fellow travelers spent decades telling American women they had to put up with bad behavior from male Democratic politicians and their friends, but they went after Republicans hammer and tongs, and the Republicans would reliably cull the bad actors.
Meanwhile, the women from the first generation to go to college in large numbers retired or got go-to-hell money. They saw mild conversation and flimsy, possibly fraudulent accusations from highly questionable sources pushed with delirious strength, while much more serious, long-standing, known behavioral habits were stonewalled, almost entirely based on party affiliation.
Then the Weinstein story broke, along with the background information that the New York Times had turned it down. And a lot of ladies who had valued their own privacy decided to speak up.
This is not a psychotic break: it is a bellwether. The Democratic Party and its media fellow travelers will clean house, or they will be exposed.
Ma’am, you are a bold and decisive person. I have worked in a technical environment (engineering) for my entire professional career. I can only look at things from my perspective. From my early years starting as a young teenager looking for a girlfriend, I would never try to woo a girl if I knew she already had a boyfriend. I’ve been married for 42 years and have never once tried to ruin that by sexually harassing anyone. It just would never occur to me.
I don’t know if any of my co-workers or bosses have ever demanded sexual favors from anyone as a condition for promotion or continued work.
Several employees have fallen for each other and have gotten married.
I don’t really care if my co-workers are men or women, I just want to get the job done and enjoy my co-workers for who they are.
One can make lifelong friends with co-workers. It is a shame women have to endure things like this (and men to a much lesser degree).
As I think back on my career at various companies, I can occasionally think “gee was that woman coming on to me at that time?” Maybe they were but I believe the Lord protects me from that by making any allure or advances just go right over my head. Good luck.
i have a similar story, as a scientific programmer/software QA,
I worked for AFWL and a number of tech companies (i worked the contract not the company). Never saw the type of harassment of females with math/BS/MS/Phd – they would not have put up with that. it seems that many of the women abused were in secretarial type of jobs that were very reliant on a good boss.
with the exception of congress, the civil service laws protect vulnerable employees.
time for the jerks in congress to quit or be impeached – they act like our masters instead of employees.
Bravo. Well said.
I seem to recall an interview Lauer did with Bill O’Rielly after O’Rielly was fired by FOX for his ‘alleged’, multi-million dollar payoff sexual predation against female colleagues.
I also recall that Lauer severely grilled, to the point of contempt, candidate Mike Pence about this crass boor from queens, D.J. Trump, and his fitness for office.
And then there’s the brief time when Lauer jumped on the feminist vapors bandwagon to ridicule VP Mike Pence about Pence’s rule to ‘never be alone in a room with a woman not his wife.’
Apparently, self-examination is not Lauer’s forte, and he has been exposed as a vile hypocrite.
This is the year a sewer of predators, liars, rapists, jerkoffs, molestors, pederasts, and perverts have oozed out of the staunch lefty enclaves of media, entertainment, and also politics. They all make this Roy Moore debacle look like a petty, partisan pretense.
So, what’s going on? Is it simply the zeitgeist of Helen Reddy, and women who finally roar? Or they’re mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore? Both?
Or something deeper, like a colluded effort to purge the old guard of Clinton pretorians to make way for the 2nd coming of Lenin, Bernie Sanders(I), in 2018?
I don’t know. I’m just asking….
->Or something deeper, like a colluded effort to purge the old guard of Clinton pretorians to make way for the 2nd coming of Lenin, Bernie Sanders(I), in 2018? <-
very likely.
maybe Bill O can interview Liar/Lauer – now that would be something to see (the Blowhard interviewing the former icon – while pushing his clothing line books etc)
one of the things which turned me off to Bill O was the smartest kid in the class posture and weird smirk/smile.
Hmmm. To the extent that this—
On the way to the airport, she said, Mr. Lauer sat uncomfortably close to her in the car; she recalled that when she moved away, he said, “You’re no fun.”
—is the sort of thing being touted as “sexual harassment”, I have to say it’s hard to get too excited about the depths of Lauer’s depravity.
I note that the young lady who recounted passing out in Lauer’s office seems to have cooperated in the preceding activities, and afterwards was not harassed, nor terminated, nor subject to the other indignities or damages often meted out to targets of harassment.
Other details, such as locks on doors, are similarly ‘way out in the “so what?” zone. A lock on a door makes him a serial molester to about the same degree that my gun cabinet makes me a murderer or assassin. What he does behind the locked doors might be a different matter; in which case the detail about the lock is not terribly relevant. So why throw it in? To contribute to the Victorian mansion-type horror-movie atmosphere, perhaps.
Obviously the guy’s a serious jerk and a boor, probably even worse than Al Franken level … but nowhere approaching, say, Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton level, even if all the accusations are 100% true.
So he’s sorry he got caught.
It is not difficult to find stories about female K-12 teachers being arrested for having sexual trysts with their students (male and female). Am I the only one to find it odd that none of the people who have been accused of sexual harassment in the business, political and media worlds are women?
Just an interesting observation. Savanna Guthrie portrayed shock and dismay at “their friend Matt” over these allegations and his firing. Other information has shown that many knew about his behavior and that it was “an open secret”. Was Ms Guthrie lying about how shocked she was or was she blind to what was going on? Even Today show new comer Megyn Kelly said she had heard rumors. I think when this all comes out not only will Matt look like the creeper he is, but those who emotionally portrayed their ignorance of his behavior must also account for either a lie or being completely clueless. Either quality is something you do not want in a journalist.
The woman said Mr. Lauer asked her to unbutton her blouse, which she did. She said the anchor then stepped out from behind his desk, pulled down her pants, …
There is something wrong with Lauer, but there is also something wrong with this woman, and anyone who would tolerate the initial request, let alone its progress.
The only thing he is sorry about is he got caught, the only regret’s he has is not collecting that $20 million+ per year salary.
But wait!
He and his lawyers are now trying to get a 30 million dollars from NBC to cover the year and a half left on his contract.
IANAL, but me thinks he best just forget that and slither off to sex rehab with Harvey, and Al and Charlie and…
Lauer is not the least bit sorry about what he did. He is only sorry that he was found out and lost his $20 million/year job. If you just look at the words used in his “apology” then you can see he has no real remorse except for now being unemployed.
The Bill Clinton apology tour continues.