Former NBC anchor Ann Curry told the Washington Post she brought an accusation of sexual harassment against Matt Lauer to two managers at NBC in 2012, but nothing was done.
Curry said she was relaying an account from a female co-worker who had confided in her.
“A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” Curry said. “She was afraid of losing her job. … I believed her.”
“I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women,” said Curry.
The Post talked to the co-worker who confirmed Curry’s account. She asked to remain anonymous out of fear of a possible backlash.
Curry has called for “systematic change.”
“We are way overdue to ending this,” she said to USA Today. I say ‘enough.’ Enough. And what we need to do is to balance the power.
“Women are at least one-to-one as far as population in this country, in some years we are the overwhelming majority of humanity. And as a result, we have to ask, ‘Why is it we’re so poorly represented in positions of power in America?’ As long as this imbalance of power exists, there’s a vulnerability.”
Lauer was fired in November by NBC following complaints of sexual harassment, which he continues to deny.
“I have made no public comments on the many false stories from anonymous or biased sources that have been reported about me over these past several months,” he said in a statement to the Post. “I remained silent in an attempt to protect my family from further embarrassment and to restore a small degree of the privacy they have lost. But defending my family now requires me to speak up.
“I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC. However 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.”
The accusations from Curry come as former NBC Anchor Tom Brokaw is also being accused of sexual harassment.
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RE: Ann Curry Says She Warned NBC about Matt Lauer in 2012: Is this why Lauer forced Ann Curry out? Because she reported the allegations against him?
RE: Ann Curry Says She Warned NBC about Matt Lauer in 2012: It comes off as disingenuous for her to call for change now when she was basically silent and complicit as it was occurring. She put nothing at risk to help anyone but she’s using this to portray herself as some kind of activist.
RE: Ann Curry Says She Warned NBC about Matt Lauer in 2012: She did do something. She complained internally about the number 1 star at NBC news and he probably went after her because of that.
I once made a small comment about chuck scarboeoigh and he got me removed from the top nightime shift. Main anchors are the 800 lb. Gorillas of TV newsrooms.
RE: ann Curry Says She Warned NBC about Matt Lauer in 2012: Joe, she did do something.
“I told management they had a problem and they needed to keep an eye on him and how he deals with women,” said Curry
For centuries and centuries women have had to remain quiet for fear of losing a job, a career, a reputation, for we know that still today rapists get off and women are blamed for it.