Amid assault allegations against Matt Lauer, former Today reporter Ann Curry spoke out in support of Brooke Nevils. An excerpt from Ronan Farrow’s tell-all book, Catch and Kill, obtained by Variety details the alleged incident that occurred between Nevils and Lauer in 2017.

“Brooke Nevils is a credible young woman of good character. She came to NBC News an eager and guileless 20-something, brimming with talent,” Curry wrote on Twitter on October 9. “I believe she is telling the truth. And that breaks my heart.”

Earlier that day, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb addressed the new rape allegations against Lauer, 61, on the Today show. “I feel like we owe it to our viewers to pause for a moment,” Guthrie, 47, began. “You know, this is shocking and appalling, and I honestly don’t even know what to say about it. I know it wasn’t easy for our colleague Brooke to come forward then, it’s not easy now. We support her and any women who have come forward with claims. It’s just very painful for all of us at NBC and who are at the Today show. It’s very, very, very difficult.”

Kotb also revealed how she was feeling. “I think it’s like you feel like you’ve known someone for 12 years, and I don’t know if you guys have felt like that,” she said. “You know someone, you know them in and out, and then all of a sudden, a door opens up, and it’s a part of them you didn’t know.”

The Oklahoma native continued, “We don’t know all of the facts in this, but they are not allegations of an affair. They are allegations of a crime. I think that is shocking to all of us here who have sat with Matt for many, many years. So, I think we are just going to continue to process this part of this horrific story and as you said, our thoughts are with Brooke. It’s not easy what she did to come forward. It’s not easy at all.”

In Farrow’s book, Nevils detailed her time with Lauer and claimed he raped her in his hotel room when they were at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, on assignment. “It was nonconsensual in the sense that I was too drunk to consent,” she claimed. “It was nonconsensual in that I said, multiple times, that I didn’t want to have anal sex.”

In November 2017, Kotb and Guthrie revealed Lauer had been fired after an unnamed “colleague” — a.k.a. Nevils — made “a detailed complaint … about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” Afterward, Lauer apologized for his actions.

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In April 2018, Curry, 62, told The Washington Post that she previously reported Lauer in 2012 after a female coworker at NBC told her she was “sexually harassed physically” by him. “A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” she told the outlet. “She was afraid of losing her job … I believed her. I told management they had a problem, and they needed to keep an eye on [Lauer] and how he deals with women.”

However, Lauer denied that he raped Nevils. “In a new book, it is alleged that an extramarital, but consensual, sexual encounter I have previously admitted having, was in fact an assault,” he said in a statement through his lawyer, Variety reported. “It is categorically false, ignores the facts and defies common sense.”

Ann Curry Wearing Blue With Matt Lauer in a Suit
Erik Pendzich/Shutterstock

He added, “I had an extramarital affair with Brooke Nevils in 2014. It began when she came to my hotel room very late one night in Sochi, Russia. We engaged in a variety of sexual acts. We performed oral sex on each other, we had vaginal sex, and we had anal sex. Each act was mutual and completely consensual. The story Brooke tells is filled with false details intended only to create the impression this was an abusive encounter. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

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