Matt Lauer ABC: NBC 'Today' Show Host Almost Went to ABC Before Ann Curry Firing? REPORT [VIDEO]
NBC's Today show host Matt Lauer almost left for ABC last year, a new report shows.
Lauer, 55, was rumored to join the network when E!'s Ryan Seacrest was rumored to replace him on Today, according to a report by New York Magazine published Monday.
The article explains Lauer was allegedly in talks to co-host a daytime show with former Today show co-host Katie Couric. The rumors involving Seacrest surfaced in 2011, before Curry confirmed she would leave Today in June 2012.
Lauer's reputation has soured since co-host Ann Curry left Today last year. The New York article, written by Joe Hagan, describes the move of Curry being replaced by Savannah Guthrie as "backstabbing."
"Ever since, Lauer has been the prime suspect in Curry's virtual demise. Five million viewers, the majority of them women, would not soon forget how Curry, the intrepid female correspondent and emotionally vivid anchor, spent her last appearance on the Today show couch openly weeping, devastated at having to leave after only a year," Hagan writes.
The passage ends describing the awkward live moment when Lauer tried to comfort Curry while she was crying on the show, and she turned her face away from him as he tried to give her a comforting kiss.
Hagan writes, "The image of Matt Lauer trying to comfort her-and of Curry turning away from his attempted kiss-has become a kind of monument to the real Matt Lauer, forensic evidence of his guilt."
The almost move to ABC was to better compete against the Today show's ratings, according to the article. Lauer has essentially been blamed for Curry's departure and the half-a-billion-a-year Today show is currently trailing ABC's Good Morning America.
