When Matt Lauer was fired amid sexual misconduct allegations, many were reminded of his role in ousting Ann Curry from her Today co-anchor seat. Curry is now, coincidentally, prepping for her much-anticipated TV return on PBS, so she’s doing the talk-show rounds and addressing the unavoidable Lauer matter. She was willing to talk, of course, but not after tossing an appropriately flippant “Who?” into the mix when Joy Behar brought up Lauer’s name.
Behar persisted while inquiring about a particularly nefarious-sounding detail within the Lauer allegations — that he had a door-locking button in his office. At the time that detail surfaced, an NBC source brushed it aside as a not-unusual feature (“an idiosyncratic thing”) in several Rockefeller Center executive offices. Still, the button did not present a good look, and Behar wanted to know more:
Behar: “Did he have a button in his office?”
Curry: “I don’t knooooow.”
Behar: “That was the allegation. That he had a button in his office, and a girl was in his office, and he locked her into his office. Am I right or wrong?”
Curry: “I don’t know that from personal experience….”
Behar: “Did you have a button in your office?”
Curry: [looking down] “I did not have a button in my office.”
Behar: “Okay, that’s it.”
While “that’s it” remains to be seen, Behar did differentiate between those allegations and Curry’s own experience. “You were a victim of quite a bit of abuse over there,” she said. “If not sexual, it was certainly nasty behavior towards you.”
Curry answered that she wanted to use her NBC experience, which (at the time) led her to believe that she was enduring something normal, to help other women rise within oppressive workplace environments. She hopes that the current climate, including all of the inherently heated debates, will help victims refuse to get stuck in the cycle of shame and guard against future instances of misconduct.
In this clip, Curry discusses her new series, We’ll Meet Again, which will help those who are caught up in life-changing moments, including humanitarian disasters, reconnect with those who helped them survive, physically and emotionally. The show will air on Tuesday evenings with its debut date pending.