one said he gave her a sex toy and then detailed in a note how he wanted to use it on her. another employee says he exposed himself in an office and reprimanded her for not engage anything a sexual act. ten current and former employees saying lauer was fixated on women, especially their bodies and looks, and was known for making lewd comments verbally or other text messages. the big question, who knew what when. variety said they tried to alert executives about lauer s behavior. in response, nbc says we can say up equivocally that, prior to monday night, current nbc news management, was never made aware of any complaints about matt lauer s conduct. nbc has known that damaging stories were coming. in a staff memo, andy lack alluded to this saying on wednesday, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident. on monday night, a female nbc employee and her attorney met with nbc hr and detailed
the firing happens overnight. we get the news about the firing this morning and all of these detailed allegations unfold over the course of today. and those allegations have been in some cases reported to nbc news human resources. and in several cases they ve been reported out into detail in variety and the new york times. so that s one of the open questions here. will more accusers come forward? beyond that, though, now that there are multiple allegations involving multiple nbc employees over multiple years, that, of course, raises the question of whether nbc had knowledge of allegations about matt lauer in the past, and if so, how were those allegations handled? today, variety made a nonspecific claim that several women, quote, complained to executives at the network about lauer s behavior which fell on deaf ears. now, nbc news today took issue with that. they responded to that by saying prior to monday night this week, quote, we can say unequivocally that prior to monday night
she told the time s she passed out and had to be taken to a nurse. she said she felt helpless because she didn t want to lose her job and she didn t report the encounter at the time because she felt shamed. she has asked to remain anonymous. several women told variety they complained to executives at the network about lauer s behavior. but the magazine writes it quote fell on deaf ears. nbc news released the following statement, quote, we can say unequivocally that prior to monday night current nbc news management was never made aware of any complaints about matt lauer s conduct. so far, there has been no response from lauer. so i think this is where we re at in terms of just how bad culture can be in an organization when something like this is happening and nobody really understands the gravity of it. apartmently on monday night, it
received at least two more complaints about lauer including a former employee who says in 2001 lauer summoned her to his office and had sex with her. she claimed she felt helpless because she didn t want to lose her job. in a new statement nbc says we can say unequivocally prior to monday night, current nbc news management was never made aware of any complaints about matt lauer s conduct. today matt lauer s co-anchor savannah guthrie broke the news saying this. i can tell you right now we don t know more than we shared with you. we ll cover this as journalists and we ll learn more details in the hours and days to come. numerous sources told variety this not a secret and that management protected matt lauer.