UPDATED 10/10, 10:20 a.m. ET: Late Wednesday Deadline shared a statement from Brooke Nevils in response to Matt Lauer's 1,400-word letter sharing his version of events.
“There’s a Matt Lauer that millions of Americans watched on TV every morning for two decades. And there is the Matt Lauer who this morning attempted to bully a former colleague into silence. His open letter was a case study in victim blaming. I am not afraid of him now regardless of his threats, bullying, and the shaming and predatory tactics I knew he would and now has tried to use against me," Nevils wrote.
See original story below.
In a new book from Ronan Farrow centered on his investigation of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer is alleged to have raped an NBC employee at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Variety got an early copy of Catch and Kill, noting that Brooke Nevils—a former NBC News employee—alleges to Farrow that Lauer "anally raped her" in his hotel room.
"It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent," she said. "It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex." Per the Catch and Kill excerpt, Nevils was allegedly invited to Lauer's room following a night of drinks. Once inside the room, Nevils alleges that Lauer pushed her against the door, kissing her. He then allegedly pushed her onto the bed, flipped her over, and asked if she "liked anal sex." Nevils told Farrow she then declined multiple times when he "just did it."
According to Farrow, this was all "no secret," with Nevils later moving to Peacock Productions to be a producer.
From Farrow's book, per Variety:
Sources close to Lauer emphasized that she sometimes initiated contact. What is not in dispute is that Nevils, like several of the women I’d spoken to, had further sexual encounters with the man she said assaulted her. ‘This is what I blame myself most for,’” she says to Farrow. “It was completely transactional. It was not a relationship.”
Lauer provided a 1,400-word letter to Variety denying Nevils’ assault claims and saying his silence over the last two years “has been a mistake.” Now, Lauer writes, “after not speaking out to protect my children, it is now with their full support I say “enough.’”
Lauer says his relationship with Nevils was a prolonged extramarital affair beginning in Sochi. “We engaged in a variety of sexual acts. We performed oral sex on each other, we had vaginal sex, and we had anal sex,” Lauer writes of the night in question. “Each act was mutual and completely consensual. The story Brooke tells is filled with false details intended only to create the impression this was an abusive encounter. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was absolutely nothing aggressive about that encounter. Brooke did not do or say anything to object. She certainly did not cry. She was a fully enthusiastic and willing partner. At no time did she behave in a way that made it appear she was incapable of consent.”
Wednesday morning, Today hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb responded to the allegations, expressing support for Nevils.
"We don't know the facts in all of this, but they are not allegations of an affair," Kotb said. "They are allegations of a crime. I think that is shocking to all of us here who have sat with Matt for many, many years."
