Date: 2025-04-05 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00017482
#MeToo
Setting the Record Straight
Tom Brokaw’s Accuser Tears Apart That Insane Matt Lauer Letter ... “I worked with Matt for nearly a decade... The time has come for some radical truth-telling.”
Peter Burgess
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty
On the Day of Atonement, the holiest of Jewish High Holy Days, Matt Lauer gravely sinned. Not only did he apparently once rape a young colleague, causing her to bleed for days, he now has penned an open letter that takes victim-shaming to a depth I have never seen before.
I worked with Matt for nearly a decade. It was well-known in the media industry that he was a philanderer, but what many of us did not know was that he was also, apparently, a sexual predator. The time has come for some radical truth-telling.
I know Lauer’s victim well, and for a long time I have known her excruciating account of being forced into painful anal sex with him. When he reportedly forced himself on her at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, she was, relatively speaking, a kid. While technically an adult, she was no match for his advanced years and extraordinary power at the network. What he did to her was profoundly confusing and traumatizing to her, and afterward she behaved in ways that some may find confusing. It is worth remembering that many child sex abusers enlist their victims into ongoing contact through psychological manipulation. In my view, Matt employed a similar dynamic.
Now to Matt’s howling screed. It’s helpful to begin with an academic term originated at the University of Oregon by Prof. Jennifer Freyd and colleagues, called DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender). This is a common tactic used by accused sex offenders, and Matt’s letter is straight out of the DARVO playbook.
First, he denies, claiming repeatedly that it was instead a consensual sexual encounter. Then he goes on the attack, embroidering his screed with lurid, graphic details intended to slut-shame Brooke Nevils. Rather than admit that he had bought his junior colleague repeated rounds of drinks until she was too stumbling drunk to fight him off, he tries to undermine her credibility by trying to portray her as a libertine who eagerly engaged in varied sex acts.
Nevils finally found the courage to give her account to NBC executives in November 2017, quickly leading to Lauer’s termination. But now Matt invents a conspiracy theory that “within a year she was trying to sell a book. And it appears that she also sought a monetary payment from NBC. Now she is… stepping into the spotlight to cause as much damage as she can.” He wants us to blame the victim and believe she is nothing more than a vengeful, jilted lover seeking money and fame. He attempts a jiu-jitsu, insinuating that he is the real victim of this scandal, rather than the perpetrator.
I want to state emphatically for the record: Women do not step forward to expose a predator for wealth and notoriety. That’s laughable. The pain, exhaustion, and sleepless nights are already so great, no one wants to add to their shame by being in the press. The only reason I have seen women trepidatiously speak out is because, at long last, they want accountability for what was done to them and they want to protect other women from the same humiliation. This is the only reason why I exposed Tom Brokaw for sexual harassment, and it’s my conviction that it’s the only reason why Brooke Nevils reported Matt Lauer.
Near the end of Matt’s screed, he sinks to even greater depths by inviting other people who know Nevils to publicly tarnish her, suggesting that “what they can share is a vital truth, even if it may seem unpopular.” And then, in his final paragraph, he levels what is clearly a menacing threat to “the women with whom I had extramarital relationships”: “I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence.” The contention that Matt has been sheltering any of his alleged victims is gobsmacking, but to go further and warn publicly that he will slut-shame them must be answered with loud and swift condemnation.
Matt may pretend with this bizarre letter that all he desires is to “set the record straight,” but those of us who have survived sexual harassment and assault know better. I believe his words are intended to harm and silence women. They are the rantings of a self-absorbed coward who has yet to take true responsibility for what he has done.
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YOU ARE NOT THE VICTIM Matt Lauer Blames His Accuser: ‘She Certainly Did Not Cry’ Barbie Latza Nadeau Matt Lauer pushed back at his latest accuser Wednesday in an “open letter” after another bombshell tidbit from Ronan Farrow’s new book, Catch and Kill, was revealed. In the letter, Lauer specifically addresses an interview with Brooke Nevils, a former NBC employee whose complaint about Lauer’s behavior led to his firing in 2017. According to Variety, Nevils told Farrow that Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room while they were on assignment covering the 2014 Sochi Olympics. ADVERTISEMENT Nevils told Farrow that Lauer pushed her onto the bed and asked if she liked anal sex. She told him no, but then Nevils says he “just did it.” “It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” Nevils is reported to have told Farrow. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.” In his response to the accusations, Lauer vigorously denied that the relationship with Nevils was without her explicit consent. “Despite my desire to set the record straight and confront the individuals making false allegations, I wanted nothing less than to create more headlines my kids would read and a new gathering of photographers at the end of our driveway,” he wrote. “But my silence has been a mistake. Today, nearly two years after I was fired by NBC, old stories are being recycled, titillating details are being added, and a dangerous and defamatory new allegation is being made.” Lauer then goes on to call the new allegation about raping Nevils “outrageous” and writes that it is “being spread as part of a promotional effort to sell a book.” He says he asked his family for support to address the matter publicly, which he was granted. ADVERTISING “In a new book, it is alleged that an extramarital, but consensual, sexual encounter I have previously admitted having, was in fact an assault,” the former Today host writes. “It is categorically false, ignores the facts, and defies common sense.” Lauer then explains how his extramarital affair with Nevils began when she came to his hotel room “very late one night” in Sochi, Russia, in 2014. He says the two “engaged in a variety of sexual acts.” To explain further, he gives the following details: “We performed oral sex on each other, we had vaginal sex, and we had anal sex.” He says, “Each act was mutual and completely consensual.” RELATED IN ENTERTAINMENT Amy Landecker Almost Turned Down ‘Transparent.’ Imagine. Antonio Banderas and director Pedro Almodovar. How Banderas and Almodóvar Made the Year’s Most Tender Movie The Funniest Stand-Up Special of the Year Is Super Dark The next lines of the letter directly accuse the woman who went on to file a complaint to NBC News about his alleged sexual abuse of being a liar, saying the story Nevils tells “is filled with false details intended only to create the impression this was an abusive encounter.” “Nothing could be further from the truth,” he writes. “There was absolutely nothing aggressive about that encounter. Brooke did not do or say anything to object. She certainly did not cry.” He goes on to call her a “fully enthusiastic and willing partner” and that she never showed that she was not capable of giving her full consent. “She seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do,” Lauer insists. “The only concern she expressed was that someone might see her leaving my room. She embraced me at the door as she left. This encounter, which she now falsely claims was an assault, was the beginning of our affair.” ‘APPALLING’ Savannah and Hoda Devastated by ‘Shocking’ Lauer Rape Claim Tim Teeman, Lloyd Grove Lauer then outlines the timeline of their continuing affair, which he says lasted for the next several months, outlining one alleged sexual encounter in his dressing room at NBC’s studios. “It showed terrible judgment on my part, but it was completely mutual and consensual,” Lauer writes. He says Nevils’ fears over control of her career were unfounded because she did not work for him or the Today show or for NBC News. “She worked for Meredith Vieira (who had not worked for the Today show in several years) in a completely different part of the network, and I had no role in reviewing Brooke’s work.” Continuing to blame his accuser, he makes one admission. “I admit, I ended the affair poorly. I simply stopped communicating with her,” he writes. “Brooke continued to reach out.” Lauer goes on to say that she had tried several times to rekindle the affair, even calling him late at night when he was with his family. “But I attempted to go back to my life and pretend as if nothing had happened. I understand how that must have made her feel,” he writes, before again accusing her of making false accusations behind his back despite being friendly to him on many occasions to his face. He says it was not until he was called in to speak to an NBC attorney in November 2017 that he says he first learned of Nevils’ complaint. He says she then asked NBC for money and that she was trying to sell a book and that he could not defend himself at the time because she insisted on remaining anonymous. “But Brooke’s story is filled with contradictions,” he says. “Which Brooke is to be believed?” Lauer then goes on to explain how he has “brought more pain and embarrassment to my family than most people can ever begin to understand,” which he says he has worked to fix. He also calls on friends and colleagues who knew of the affair to come forward. “I hope those people will understand that these allegations cross a serious line, and what they can share is a vital truth even if it may seem unpopular.” He says that by not speaking out he “emboldened those who continue to do me harm with false stories.” He also seeks to clarify stories that he had a button under his desk that allowed him to lock the door without getting up. “Despite numerous erroneous reports in the past, there was not a button in my office that could lock the door from the inside,” he writes. “There was no such locking mechanism. It didn’t exist.” He ends the lengthy letter with a final swing. “For two years, the women with whom I had extramarital relationships have abandoned shared responsibility, and instead, shielded themselves from blame behind false allegations,” he writes. “They have avoided having to look a boyfriend, husband, or a child in the eye and say, ‘I cheated.” Then, in what appears to be a not-so-veiled threat, he implies he will out them all. “They have done enormous damage in the process,” he says. “And I will no longer provide them the shelter of my silence.” READ MORE My Favorite Nude Beach in the World READ THIS LIST Tom Brokaw’s Accuser Shreds That Insane Matt Lauer Screed LINDA VESTER Rudy’s Ukraine Henchmen Arrested on Campaign-Finance Charge LACHLAN MARKAY Cuba Gooding Jr. Indicted on New Charges in Groping Case PILAR MELENDEZ He Wouldn’t Know Impartial Justice if It Bit Him in the A** MARGARET CARLSON The Best Nude Beach in the World STEPHANIE THEOBALD