Matt Lauer, the disgraced and now fired co-anchor of NBC’s Today Show, turned his 30 Rockefeller Center office into a secret sex lair, complete with a button under his desk that automatically locked his door, according to Variety.
Three women who spoke with Variety say they complained to network executives after Lauer behaved inappropriately with them. Nothing was done, though, because “the morning news show was No. 1 in the ratings, and executives were eager to keep him happy.”
Variety claims to have spent two months investigating the story. To confirm the allegations, the outlet says it spoke to dozens of current and former NBC staffers, as well as friends, all of whom corroborated the horror stories.
One incident involved Lauer dropping his pants and revealing his penis to a female employee. When she refused to comply, he reprimanded her. Another woman says Lauer gave her a sex toy as a gift with a note attached that explicitly detailed how he wanted to use it on her.
Lauer was fired Wednesday morning from his $25 million per year job after a still unknown NBC staffer accused the married father of three of assaulting her at the 2014 Olympics.
Almost as disturbing is the news from Variety that “Lauer’s conduct was not a secret among other employees” who worked on the morning show. “At least one of the anchors would gossip about stories she had heard, spreading them among the staff.“
A former NBC reporter added, “Management sucks there. They protected the s— out of Matt Lauer.”
Apparently, Lauer’s obsession with sex was out in the open. He liked to quiz female producers about who they slept with and would give up his own names. He would also play “f—, marry, or kill,” a game that allowed him to name the co-host he would most like to sleep with.
The idea of using his office as some sort of secret lair was apparently due to his fame. “He couldn’t sleep around town with celebrities or on the road with random people, because he’s Matt Lauer and he’s married. So he’d have to do it within his stable, where he exerted power, and he knew people wouldn’t ever complain,” a former producer explained, adding, “There were a lot of consensual relationships, but that’s still a problem because of the power he held.”
Lauer’s behavior was so well known, in fact, that when the Today Show began reporting on this recent wave of sexual harassment allegations, “It often made for awkward moments on TV for staff members who knew about Lauer’s private interactions.”
Moreover, according to the Daily Mail, Megyn Kelly, who has only been with NBC for a short time, admits that she heard “rumors” about Lauer but hoped “they were not true.”
As of now, we do not know the names of the NBC executives who stand accused of shielding and enabling Lauer’s alleged predations. But just as we heard with respect to NBC’s Mark Halperin, Glenn Thrush of the New York Times, and Charlie Rose at CBS/PBS, everyone knew, everyone knew, everyone knew.
As of now, including Lauer, no fewer than 17 elite media bigwigs associated with almost every mainstream media outlet in America, have been accused of behavior ranging from masturbating in front of a subordinate to unwanted touching to assault.
There is a cancer within the national media, a cancer of left-wing abusers and their left-wing enablers.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.