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One of Matt Lauer’s NBC colleagues said that she still has love for Matt Lauer following his termination on the basis of sexual misconduct allegations.
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News of Lauer’s firing was reported on Wednesday. NBC News chairman Andrew Lack wrote in a memo, “We were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
It was soon discovered that Lauer was accused of sexually assaulted a woman during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia. A video of Katie Couric admitting in 2012 that Lauer pinched her “on the ass a lot” also resurfaced. Several in media later admitted that they and others were already aware that several women reported Lauer’s behavior over the past few months.
TMZ caught up with Hoda Kotb of “Kathie Lee and Hoda” to ask her thoughts of Lauer.
“I love him,” she said while greeting her fans.
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At another point in the day, Kotb’s co-host, Kathie Lee Gifford, reacted to Lauer’s firing with a personal thought on an affair carried out by her late husband, Frank Gifford.
“I don’t feel that Matt has betrayed us in any way at all, but when I found out that my husband had betrayed me, you question your own judgment,” she confessed. “You say, ‘Was everything a lie?’ And I think we have to fight against that, very much fight against that. That the man we know and adored was the man we loved and adored and continue to. I texted [Lauer] this morning and I said, ‘I adore you.’”
“No one is perfect. Nobody is. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” she said, invoking religion. Gifford sought “forgiveness” and “mercy for one another.” She prayed that God heal the victim who came forward as well as Lauer and his family.
Lauer worked for NBC and “TODAY” for 25 years. According to HuffPost, he was one of the highest paid talents on the show with an annual contract worth around $25 million.
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