For the first time in five months, Matt Lauer has broken his silence on being fired from Today over allegations of sexual misconduct. On Thursday, April 26, the former anchor made it known that while he “fully acknowledges acting inappropriately as a husband, father, and principal at NBC,” he did commit the crimes he’s being accused of.

“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,” he told the Washington Post. Despite the 60-year-old’s desperate attempts to clear his name, however, new allegations from his former co-anchor Ann Curry have now surfaced that paint a different story entirely.

In the same Washington Post article, Ann, 61, explained that she was tearfully approached by a woman at Today in 2012 who told her she was “sexually harassed physically” by Matt. “She was afraid of losing her job… I believed her,” Ann detailed. “I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women.”

Many speculated that the lack of chemistry between the co-anchors was the reason that Ann suddenly left Today in 2012 after less than a year of hosting alongside Matt. However, her recent statements suggest otherwise. “This is one of the problems when we talk about corporations with an HR department being under leadership of someone who might or might not be accused,” she said. “How are they going to complain about it if they are accusing someone who is overseeing the department that is supposed to protect them?”

matt lauer and ann curry

In the years since, the mother-of-two has returned to television with her six-part PBS series, We’ll Meet Again with Ann Curry. The series is focused on 12 stories of different people on a quest to locate people who have changed their lives. Additionally, Ann appeared as a co-host on The View in January 2018 to address Matt’s Today controversy.

In her final comment to the Post, Ann made a poignant observation on the nature of corporate America, “Do you have a system that allows those who feel they have been victimized to air their complaints without fear they will lose their jobs?” she said. “I don’t know a company that does.”

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