Five years after being fired from NBC’s “Today” show over allegations of sexual misconduct, Matt Lauer has lost trust in people and has “withdrawn from several friendships,” largely due to Katie Couric, who labeled him a “predator” and shared their private text messages in her 2021 memoir, according to a report.
A source told People that the disgraced former morning show host “was really upset” by the book, “Going There,” penned by Couric, his longtime friend and onetime “Today” co-host.
“She shared their private text messages and she semi-slammed him,” the source said. “It made him lose trust.”
“His level of trust has just diminished with a lot of people he considered friends and much of that was because of Katie’s book, and because talking to people from his past is painful,” the source continued.
Lauer was one of several high-profile men in media who fell from grace in the fervent early months of the #MeToo movement, sparked by investigative reports into multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault involving producer Harvey Weinstein. After a number of women, including A-list female celebrities, went public with accusations against Weinstein, multiple women at NBC felt comfortable coming forward to allege they had been preyed upon in the workplace by Lauer.
Lauer, who co-hosted “Today” for 20 years, was fired from his job on Nov. 29, 2017, after being initially accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with one female staffer. Immediately following his ouster, complaints from multiple women came to light, including reports that he gave one woman a sex toy, exposed himself to another female colleague in his office and, more seriously, raped an employee in a hotel room at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Lauer denied ever raping anyone and said all his encounters with women were consensual.
Four years after Lauer’s firing, Couric published her memoir, in which she said she had “no idea” that he had sexually abused and harassed multiple female co-workers during his time at NBC.
Couric wrote that her “heart sank” when she heard that Lauer had been fired. She wondered if the allegations were just wild rumors and she immediately sent him a text, expressing her love and support.
“I am crushed,” Couric wrote in a text quoted in her book. “I love you and care about you deeply. I am here. Please let me know if you want to talk. There will be better days ahead.”
Couric said Lauer responded with a blowing kiss emoji.
While Couric said she read about all the “awful things” Lauer had done, she still worried about him and feared he was “sleepless, haggard, depressed, maybe worse.”
Couric also said she felt it would have been “heartless to abandon him, someone who’d been by my side, literally, for so many years.” She said she didn’t speak out earlier, when she heard the “whispers” about his behavior with female colleagues, because “the general rule at the time was: It’s none of your business.”
Eventually, she said she came to realize that Lauer could be an “excellent professional partner, a good friend, and a predator.”
Couric’s language about Lauer was more harsh when she spoke to Savannah Guthrie on the “Today” show to promote her book. Couric condemned Lauer’s “disgusting,” “callous” and “abusive” behavior towards women. She also explained that his actions went unchallenged because of the pre-#MeToo culture that he thrived in. TV news in the 1990s “was a pretty permissive culture,” Couric added.
Since Lauer’s firing, Couric isn’t the only friend from whom he has become estranged. The 63-year-old has “lost a lot of friends,” another source told People in 2021.
“People would check up on him for a while, but that’s stopped to a degree,” the source told People. “He just stays to himself, he doesn’t really reach out to people very much anymore or engage them and so he’s been losing touch with a lot of people.”
Lauer’s “lavish lifestyle” also had to change, the source told People in 2021. Before Lauer was fired, he had an estimated net worth of $80 million and owned multiple homes in Manhattan, in the Hamptons and in New Zealand.
“When he left the ‘Today’ show, he didn’t get paid a penny after he got fired. NBC stuck with that,” the source said. Lauer’s wife Annette Roque divorced him, and he sold at least two of his lavish properties, according to reports. But Lauer isn’t in the poor house. “He’s presumably sitting on mountains of money but then again, he had a lot of money in real estate,” the source added to People.
Lauer also is in a “transitional time” with his two older children — Jack, 21, and Romy, 19 — who are now in college, and his youngest, 16-year-old Thijs, who is in high school, People reported this week, citing a source who said, he’s “a semi-empty nester, not working.”
