Kathie Lee Gifford Urges Viewers To Have “Forgiveness And Mercy” For Matt Lauer

It’s been a big day at NBC. Just a few hours after Savannah Guthrie announced on Today that her co-host Matt Lauer had been fired for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” another Today host, Kathie Lee Gifford, shared her thoughts on the scandal.

During the fourth hour of Today, Gifford and co-host Hoda Kotb (who joined Guthrie for the announcement earlier this morning) expressed their shock over the sexual harassment allegations and Lauer’s subsequent firing. Kotb explained that “it’s difficult to reconcile what we’re hearing with the man we know,” adding that processing the news is going to “take a lot of time.”

Gifford, on the other hand, went further, urging viewers to forgive Lauer for his transgressions. Bringing up her late husband Frank Gifford’s well-documented infidelities, she said, “I don’t feel that Matt has betrayed us in any way at all but when I found out that my husband had betrayed me, you question your own judgment. You say, ‘Was everything a lie?’ And I think we have to very much fight against that, that the man we know and adored was the man we loved and adored and continue to.”

Gifford continued by telling viewers that she texted Lauer this morning with a message saying “I adore you. No person is perfect in this world.” According to Gifford, what we need now is “forgiveness and mercy for one another.”

Watch Gifford’s full statement on Lauer’s firing below.

(via Vulture)