Matt Lauer has been accused of exposing himself to a female co-worker and giving another a sex toy as a gift.
The 59-year-old presenter was fired from ‘Today’ earlier this week following an allegation of inappropriate sexual behaviour and now "dozens" of past and current NBC staff have come forward to speak about their alleged encounters with him.
According to Variety, Lauer gave one colleague a sex toy and included an explicit note about how he wanted to use it on her, leaving her "mortified", while another told the publication he had summoned her to his office then dropped his pants. When she declined to do anything, he reprimanded her for not engaging in a sexual act.
The unnamed women also alleged the anchor would quiz female producers on who they had slept with, offering to spill the beans on his own sex life in return, and his favourite game was to play "f**k, marry, or kill", in which he’d identify the co-hosts he most wanted to sleep with.
The report claimed Lauer’s office had a secret button under the desk so he could lock the door without getting up, and producers worried their careers would be damaged if they didn’t return his advances.
One said: "There is such shame with Matt Lauer not liking you. I did this special with him and we are traveling and I had a cold sore on my lip and I heard him say to Bryant Gumbel, ‘She has this really ugly cold sore on her lip,’ like that was something to be ashamed of. He was just really cruel."
Lauer – who has children Jack, 16, Romy, 13, and Thijs, 11, with wife Annette Roque – allegedly had a number of "consensual relationships" at NBC but they caused a lot of "problems".
One former producer said: "There were a lot of consensual relationships, but that’s still a problem because of the power he held.
"He couldn’t sleep around town with celebrities or on the road with random people, because he’s Matt Lauer and he’s married. So he’d have to do it within his stable, where he exerted power, and he knew people wouldn’t ever complain."
Lauer has yet to comment on the allegations.
Matt Lauer allegations detailed
