Matt Lauer’s photos were removed from the Today show social media accounts shortly after the news of his firing on Wednesday, November 29.
The show’s original Twitter cover photo included Lauer, 59, along with his former colleagues — Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Megyn Kelly, Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford and Carson Daly. Now, however, the pic is replaced by one of Roker and Guthrie at the main desk.
Lauer has also been removed from the show’s YouTube channel and a photo that featured him and Guthrie on Today.com is now blurred out. In addition, Us Weekly can confirm that photos of Lauer and the Today team have been taken down at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in NYC. There’s also no merchandise of Lauer in the NBC store.
As previously reported, the 59-year-old vet journalist was fired after a colleague came forward alleging him of sexual misconduct. NBC News chairman Andy Lack sent an email to employees moments before Guthrie and Kotb announced the news live on air.
“I’m heartbroken for Matt – he is my dear, dear friend and my partner, and he has been loved by many, many people here,” Guthrie said on Wednesday. “And I’m heartbroken for the brave colleague who came forward to tell her story, and any other women who have their own stories to tell. How do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly? I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know this reckoning that so many organizations have been going through is important, it’s long overdue, and it must result in workplaces where all women — all people — feel safe and respected.”
Kotb chimed in: “It’s hard to reconcile with what we are hearing with the man who we know, who walks in this building every single day. We were both woken up with the news, kind of pre-dawn, and we’re trying to process it and trying to make sense of it – and it’ll take some time for that.”
