Katie Couric absolutely went there in her shocking new autobiography Going There! After colleague Matt Lauer, 63, was ousted as host of NBC’s morning show TODAY in 2017 over allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace, Katie, 64, wrote that she put her personal feelings aside and reached out to her former fallen co-host to see how he was doing.
“Even though I had read about all the awful things Matt had done, I was worried about him. I imagined him sleepless, haggard, depressed… maybe worse. And how were Annette and their children holding up? So I reached out again and asked how he was doing, which I realized was a very dumb question,” the iconic journalist wrote. “Matt got back to me two and a half hours later. He gave me his new number ‘for my files.’ He said he was struggling and would like to hear my voice.”
“Before I could respond, I heard from him again at 4:04 a.m. He said he had tried to leave me a voicemail, but (true to form) my mailbox was full. He repeated that he was struggling and that he’d like to hear my voice. I told him I would call him later that morning,” she wrote in the newly released tell-all. Katie’s husband since 2014, John Molner, suggested that she should go and speak to Matt in person, rather than over the phone.
“John thought I should just jump in the car and drive out to East Hampton to talk to him. I wanted to, but I didn’t know what I would say. If I’m being perfectly honest, I was worried about my reputation. Matt’s situation had created a feeding frenzy the likes of which I’d never seen before— there were paparazzi camped out at his house. If I was spotted there, it might have looked like I condoned the behavior,” she wrote.
“I guess I could have visited in the dead of night, like Jennifer Aniston’s character on The Morning Show after her colleague, played by Steve Carell, had an eerily similar crash and burn,” Katie joked about the uncomfortable position she was in at the time. Ultimately, however, she decided against the middle-of-the-night visit, as she valued her career more, writing, “I was confused, and simply not ready to take on the role of sympathetic friend and colleague just yet.”
When writing about her final interaction with Matt, Katie concluded, “One summer day in East Hampton, John and I were taking a walk when a white Jeep drove by: Matt. I’m sure he saw us; needless to say, he didn’t stop. I knew in that moment, we’d never speak again.”