When news broke of Matt Lauer being fired from NBC News last November, Twitter users quickly began to speculate how Ann Curry was celebrating. After all, the allegedly tumultuous relationship between the former coworkers was widely believed to have led to Curry’s tearful June 2012 departure from Today.
“Somewhere, Ann Curry just made her orange juice a mimosa,” wrote one person at the time. Added another: “Somewhere Ann Curry is having a nice bowl of Frosted Karma Flakes.”
But Curry revealed during a Monday, January 22, appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that she didn’t actually delight in Lauer’s exit.
“The truth is that I was raised Catholic by a Buddhist. So I think about the Catholic guilt, mixed with the karma, worries, the intensity of that,” explained the 61-year-old journalist. “It was like all of the sudden my brain — think Game of Thrones — the wall, it went up. There was this whole wall of, ‘Uh-oh, you can’t talk like that. You can’t think like that.’ So I didn’t actually, get to enjoy it.”
“But isn’t this his karma?” asked Colbert, 53, to which Curry replied: “Well, that’s a good point, but . . . also you have to think about the pain. You know, a lot of people have suffered. So I haven’t had a chance to celebrate for a lot of reasons.”
As previously reported, NBC terminated Lauer on November 29 after a colleague accused him of sexual misconduct in the workplace. “Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized,” the former host told Us at the time. “But there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”
Though Curry couldn’t dish too many details on Lauer — she signed a non-disclosure agreement — she didn’t hold back when it came to expressing her affection for Colbert.
“I probably should tell you something. You may not want to hear this, but I actually have a baby crush on you,” she confessed. “In fact, my husband’s in the audience, so I think it’s OK because he has a crush on you too. We watch you all the time, and you’re so devastatingly witty and funny, and you’re just as adorable as a puppy dog. It’s so hard not to love you.”
