Not Today … and not tomorrow. Katie Couric doesn’t want to talk about the one topic everyone is lining up to ask her about.
“She is really sick of being asked about Matt Lauer,” an insider says in the new issue of Us Weekly. That feeling comes as the former Today show host is on a press tour promoting her new National Geographic series, America Inside Out With Katie Couric. After a recent talk show appearance, in fact, Couric felt “attacked” when questions about Lauer came up, the source noted.
However, “Katie answers when asked about Matt, even if she’s repeating herself,” another source tells Us. “She understands the interest and answers.”
Couric and Lauer, 60, cohosted the ratings juggernaut together from 1997 to 2006. Lauer was fired by NBC News in late November 2017 after several coworkers accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior. Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb now cohost the program.
The 61-year-old journalist first broke her silence on the scandal on Instagram in December, writing in response to a fan, “It’s incredibly upsetting and I will say something when I’m ready to.”
She has since shared her feelings on the topic, telling Us Weekly in an earlier statement, “The whole thing has been very painful for me. The accounts I’ve read and heard have been disturbing, distressing and disorienting and it’s completely unacceptable that any woman at the Today show experienced this kind of treatment. I had no idea this was going on during my tenure or after I left. I think I speak for many of my former colleagues when I say this was not the Matt we knew. Matt was a kind and generous colleague who treated me with respect.”
In the same statement, Couric referenced a remark she once made about Lauer on Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen: “In fact, a joke I once made on late night television was just that, because it was completely contrary to our brother sister relationship,” she wrote. “It’s still very upsetting. I really admire the way Savannah and Hoda and the entire Today show staff have handled a very difficult situation.”
The late-night joke in question? When Couric was asked by the Bravo host in 2012 what Lauer’s most annoying habit was, she had responded, “He pinches me on the ass a lot.”
For more on Couric’s distaste for the Lauer question, pick up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now.
