Investigative journalist Ronan Farrow has accused NBC News executives of being aware of multiple other misconduct allegations against former Today host Matt Lauer and arranging other settlement agreements years before his firing in 2017. Farrow’s new book, Catch and Kill, revealed the complaint behind Lauer’s firing—one of his colleagues accused him of rape at the Sochi Olympics in 2014. When Lauer was fired in 2017, NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack called it the “first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years” Lauer had been at the company. Farrow has now disputed that, telling Good Morning America on Friday: “What we show in this book, with a paper trail, with documents, was that there were multiple secret settlements and nondisclosures being struck with women at NBC News.” He went on to say there were seven nondisclosure agreements struck with women at NBC News, adding: “Multiple ones of those were with Matt Lauer accusers. This is years before this [Sochi] incident with Brooke Nevils and the firing, and I spoke to senior executives who were told about those earlier incidents.”
An NBC News spokesperson denied the allegations and said: “The first time we learned about Matt Lauer’s sexual misconduct in the workplace was the night of Nov. 27, 2017, and he was fired in 24 hours. Any suggestion that we knew prior to that evening, paid any ‘hush money,’ or tried to cover up any aspect of Lauer’s appalling behavior is absolutely false. NBCU’s legal team has done an exhaustive search of available records and conducted dozens of interviews of past and present staff, and uncovered no claims or settlements relating to allegations of inappropriate conduct by Matt Lauer that pre-date his firing. Only following his termination did we reach agreements with two women who had come forward for the very first time and those women have always been free to share their stories about Lauer with anyone they choose.”
Read it at ABC News
