Megyn Kelly Applauds Meredith Vieira and Ann Curry for Supporting Women Amid Matt Lauer Allegations

Former TV host Megyn Kelly couldn’t help but acknowledge Meredith Vieira and Ann Curry for supporting the women who came forward after they claimed Matt Lauer had sexually assaulted them. “Let’s not lose sight of the forces for good in this story, like former Lauer cohost Ann, who, despite the risks, sounded the alarm on Lauer in 2012 after a young woman complained to her,” she told Page Six. “Meredith, who, when confronted with Brooke Nevils’ account, told her to go report it.”

Kelly, 48 — who was fired from NBC in October 2018 after she made some controversial comments — hinted that she had an idea about Lauer’s rendezvous with various women. “I had heard rumors about Matt, but that’s all they were,” she told Business Insider in 2017. “And my feeling on it was that rumors are not the same as reportable fact. And I hear a lot of rumors about myself that aren’t true. I had no inside knowledge at all, but I knew people were sniffing around the issue and hoped it wasn’t true.”

In 2017, Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb revealed Lauer, 61, had been fired from the Today show after an unnamed “colleague” — a.k.a. Nevils — made “a detailed complaint … about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” In Ronan Farrow’s new book, Catch and Kill, he wrote that Nevils told Vieira — her coworker at the time — what had allegedly happened between her and Lauer. In response, Vieira, 65, urged Nevils to talk to human resources with a lawyer, which she did.

For her part, Curry, 62, told The Washington Post in April 2018 that she previously reported Lauer in 2012 after a female coworker at NBC told she was “sexually harassed physically” by him. “A woman approached me and asked me tearfully if I could help her,” she recalled to 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.”

Kelly knows what it’s like to be a part of the #MeToo movement since she revealed her former Fox boss Roger Ailes harassed her in the workplace. After Lauer was fired, Kelly had former Today production assistant Addie Zinone on Megyn Kelly Today to talk about her interactions with Lauer. “All I’m going to say is that I feel very strongly about the #MeToo coverage, the importance of doing it without fear or favor,” she told Us Weekly in 2018. “I didn’t let anyone stop me at Fox, and I’m not going to let anyone stop me at NBC.”

Deal of the Day

Only $12! — (And No One Will Know They Aren’t Designer) View Deal

Ultimately, 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.”

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.”

Annette Roque — who recently finalized her divorce from Lauer in September — has been having a hard time dealing with the aftermath of the headlines. “Annette is divorced from Matt, but the pain she’s having to relive right now is still tremendous,” a source exclusively told In Touch. “It’s reopening old wounds — the details about what Matt did with that woman are disgusting.”