Matt Lauer Biography
Matt Lauer (Matthew Todd Lauer) is a former American television news anchor. He was the co-host of NBC’s Today show from 1997 to 2017, and a contributor for Dateline NBC. He lost his job in 2017 after sexual misconduct allegations were made against him.
Matt Lauer Age
He was born on December 30, 1957 in New York City, New York, U.S
Matt Lauer Height
He is 1.8m tall.
Matt Lauer Education
Matt attended Woodlands High School in Hartsdale, Westchester until his sophomore year. After getting average grades, his parents decided to move him to a school with a more challenging curriculum. The family moved to allow him to attend Greenwich High School in Greenwich, CT. He graduated from the more academically rigorous school in 1975.
He originally attended the Scripps College of Communication and School of Media Arts at Ohio University in the mid 1970’s. He dropped out of the school in 1997 and began to pursue his career. He returned to the school later in life and earned his undergraduate degree in 1997.
Matt Lauer Parents
He is the son of Marilyn Lauer, a boutique owner, and Jay Robert Lauer, a bicycle-company executive.
Lauer’s father was of Romanian Jewish ancestry. Lauer said, “My dad was Jewish. My mom is not. So I was not raised anything. I do feel a desire now to find something spiritual. Getting married and wanting to have kids has something to do with that.”
Matt Lauer Siblings
He has a sister, April Lauer Stone.
Matt Lauer Wife
Lauer was married to television producer Nancy Alspaugh from 1982 to 1989. He later married Dutch model Annette Roque, whom he met on a blind date in July 1997. Lauer proposed to Roque after five months of dating, and the two wedded in Bridgehampton, New York on October 3, 1998.
In 2006, while pregnant with Thijs, their last born, Roque filed for divorce. She accused Lauer of, mental abuse, extreme mental and emotional distress, humiliation, torment, and anxiety. Weeks later they reconciled. On September 7, 2019, Lauer and Roque officially divorced, following nearly two years of separation in the wake of his 2017 sexual harassment allegations.
Matt Lauer Kids
He together with his wife Roque have three children: son Jack who was born in June 26, 2001, daughter Romy who was born in October 2, 2003, and son Thijs who was born in November 28, 2006.
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Matt Lauer NBC
Lauer joined NBC in 1992, when he became co-anchor of the early weekday news show Today in New York on the network’s New York flagship station WNBC. After a year, he also filled the role of Live at Five co-anchor with Sue Simmons, eventually taking the role permanently and giving up the morning shift by 1994; he was replaced on Today in New York by Maurice DuBois. Lauer remained on Live at Five until 1996.
From 1992-1993 he filled in as the newsreader on The Today Show for Margaret Larson when needed. This “audition” period allowed him to join The Today Show full-time in January 1994 as news anchor, while still co-anchoring Today in New York and Live at Five. On top of his duties on The Today Show, he also hosted programming on Discovery Channel and MSNBC.
Between 1998 and 2017, he co-hosted NBC’s live coverage of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On the April 5, 2012, program, Lauer announced that he had signed a new contract with NBC News through 2017. An estimate by Forbes indicated that the contract paid him $25 million a year.
On September 8, 2016, Lauer conducted separate 30-minute interviews with presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The New York Times reported that the reaction to Lauer’s performance was “not kind”.
On November 30, 2016, it was revealed that Lauer had signed a new contract up to 2018. Variety reported that his salary was $20 million a year. On January 6, 2017, Lauer celebrated his 20th anniversary on The Today Show with a look back at some of his most memorable moments on the show.
Matt Lauer Sexual Misconduct and Assault Allegations
On November 29, 2017, Lauer was fired by NBC after an unidentified female NBC employee reported that he had sexually harassed her during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and that the harassment continued after they returned to New York.
Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News, sent a memorandum to his staff that said, in part, “On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer. While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”
In the 2019 book Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, Ronan Farrow cited multiple sources who stated that NBC News was not only aware of Lauer’s misconduct beforehand, but that Harvey Weinstein used this knowledge to pressure them into killing a story that would have outed his own sexual assaults. Additional accusations went public in the ensuing days. NBC acknowledged three additional cases from 2000 to 2007.
In Catch and Kill, Farrow reveals one of the alleged victims as Brooke Nevils, who says Lauer anally raped her in his hotel room while the two were in Sochi covering the 2014 Winter Olympics for NBC. Farrow also writes in his book that Nevils had additional sexual encounters with Lauer after the initial incident, but she characterized those encounters as “transactional”, and consented only out of fear that Lauer had control over her career.
In a statement made after his firing, Lauer apologized for his actions, saying, “Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.” Following Nevils’ allegation of sexual assault that was published in Farrow’s book, Lauer issued an open letter confirming that he had a consensual sexual relationship with Nevils and that the relationship started in 2014 in Sochi, but denying that the initial encounter was non-consensual.
Two weeks after Lauer’s firing, Addie Zinone, a former Today production assistant, made an additional accusation, saying that she had a consensual sexual relationship with Lauer in June 2000. Zinone claimed that the relationship was an “abuse of power” on Lauer’s part because Zinone said that she felt that turning down Lauer’s advances would have hurt her career.
According to Farrow, Today show booker Melissa Lonner claims that Lauer exposed himself to her in 2010 at an NBC cocktail party. He denies this claim and through his lawyer said, “he will not take part in the marketing circus of this book.”
Matt Lauer Salary
At the peak of his career, he earned $28 million a year. His NBC News contract in 2012 earned him $25 million a year while his 2016 contract earned him $20 million a year.
Matt Lauer Net Worth
His net worth is $60 million.
Matt Lauer Instagram
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Matt Lauer Twitter
He does not have a twitter account.