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Matt Lauer Seethes Watching ‘Today’ Cohosts Take on Olympics for NBC After Ousting: ‘Devastating’
Matt Lauer, who had been hugely invested in the Olympics, is hating the fact he won’t be covering the games in Paris. A source reveals to In Touch exclusively that it’s been gut wrenching for the presenter to watch others cover it and another painful reminder of how far he’s fallen.
“It’s very agonizing for him being out in the cold, still,” the source says.
Matt, 66, first cohosted the Olympic Games in Beijing, back in 2008. Since then, he’s racked up an impressive resume befitting an Olympian presenter, including cohosting the 2010 Winter Olympics in Canada, the London 2012 Summer Games, 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and lastly the Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016.
The source continues: “He cohosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympics, both summer and winter, and he was excellent at it, in his own estimation.”
However, regardless of how great Matt believes he was, NBC canned the host in 2017 over “a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” a statement released by Andrew Lack, chairman of the network said.
While “it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News,” the statement read, “we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
Additionally, Variety reported in November 2017 that Matt was facing allegations of misconduct by at least 10 different women he worked with. He even “once gave a colleague a sex toy as a present,” the magazine alleged.
The disgraced television host hasn’t covered any of the games since the allegations arose.
“It’s extremely unpleasant to see his former colleagues jostling for position in Paris, not because they’re doing a better job, but because they got lucky,” the source says of Matt’s distaste for watching former NBC coworker Hoda Kotb explore the City of Lights ahead of the Paris Games.
With Matt out, hosting the games fell squarely on the shoulders of Hoda, 59, and Today cohost Savannah Guthrie at NBC.
“It’s so, so much fun. It’s so beautiful. It’s so exciting that, of course, you wish that your kids were here. You wish that your spouse was here,” Savannah, 52, said of hosting the Games in an ET interview on August 1.
The Today host continued, specifically discussing Céline Dion’s performance closing out the Opening Ceremony: “We were just a puddle on the floor. That wasn’t the rain. Those were our tears. It was just so beautiful.”
Beyond the long-awaited return of Céline, 56, to the stage, Hoda gushed about the star power present at the Games: “We’ve been to plenty of Olympics. I don’t think we’ve ever been to an Olympics with this many celebrities.”
“Every time you turn around it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s Lady Gaga. Oh, there’s Anna Wintour,’” the host said.
For Matt, “It will be impossible to ignore it and it’s just devastating to him,” the source says. “He’s in a foul mood over it.”
“He goes over and over it, wondering why he can’t get a break, but must know it’s not going to happen at this point.”
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