Ann Curry Says She “Was Not Surprised” By Matt Lauer’s Sex Scandal

Ann Curry has finally broken her silence on leaving the Today Show, the allegations against Matt Lauer, and the #MeToo movement. In an interview on CBS This Morning, the former Today Show host came on to promote her new PBS show, We’ll Meet Again. However, before the morning crew let Curry explain her new series, they asked her directly about what she witnessed while working at NBC and whether she though Matt Lauer had a hand in her firing.

Initially, Curry seemed as if she was going to dodge the direct questions about the sexual harassment allegations against Lauer. “I’m trying to do no harm in these conversations,” she said before adding, “I can tell you that I am not surprised by the allegations.”

When pressed about what she meant by not being surprised, Curry emphasized that she didn’t want to get anyone into undue trouble before calling out what she claimed to be a negative environment at NBC. “I’m trying not to hurt people, and I know what it’s like to be publicly humiliated. I never did anything wrong to be publicly humiliated, and I don’t want to cause that kind of pain to somebody else,” Curry started.

“But I can say — because you’re asking me a very direct question — I can say that I’d be surprised if many women did no understand that there was a climate of verbal harassment that existed,” she said. “I think it would be surprising if someone said that they didn’t see that.”

Curry was also asked directly about whether or not she thought that Lauer was responsible for her firing in 2013. “I don’t know what was all behind [the firing]. I do know it hurt like hell. It wasn’t a fun moment. I’ve learned a great deal about myself. I’ve really at this point let it go,” she said. “It’s been years and I want to sort of really move on from that.”

Curry also had some concerns about how America will handle this wave of sexual harassment and assault allegations moving forward. “The real question in my view is what are we going to do with all this anger? And it’s not obviously just about where I used to work. It’s not about where you’re now working. But it’s about the problem that’s pervasive across industries and across America,” she said. “I wonder if we keep focusing only on these individual scandals, if we’re actually going to move off of that foot into creating something better in the future.”

She also spoke about the depressing prevalence of sexual harassment. “I don’t know a single woman who has not endured some form of sexual harassment,” Curry said. “It’s happened to me in multiple jobs, and it is a way of sidelining women. And it’s ultimately not only bad for the women, it’s bad for the companies. And it’s bad for our nation because it’s limiting a people.”

Moving forward, Curry highlighted the importance of focusing on the victims. “What are we going to do to remove the stigma and the shame?” she said. “What are we going to do to make sure these women work and are not sidelined and prevented from contributing to the greater good that we’re all trying to do?”

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