Celebs Who Can't Stand Matt Lauer
Every famous face in Hollywood has had some kind of relationship with the Today show. NBC's flagship news program has long been a gatekeeper of the morning talk show circuit, and people who have something to promote are always finding themselves on its set, whether they're actors, athletes, or musicians. Many famous faces have crossed paths with former host Matt Lauer over the years, and some have formed pointed opinions about the famous newsman. In the wake of his shocking termination in November 2017 following an allegation of sexual misconduct allegation, let's take a closer look at Lauer's detractors.
Corey Feldman
As Hollywood continues to flounder under a growing wave of allegations about sexual harassment, assault, and rape at the hands of entertainment and media heavy-hitters, many celebs are striving to keep the conversation going and create lasting change. Actor Corey Feldman, who claims he was victimized as a child by Hollywood elite, has launched a crowdfunding plea for $10 million to make a movie detailing abuse within the industry. (Feldman later reduced that goal to $1 million.)
Feldman's approach attracted a lot of attention and landed him an invite to the Today show for an interview with Lauer. That meeting got a bit "contentious." In the interview, Lauer questioned why Feldman needed such a massive amount of funding, and he pressed the actor to uphold his promise to name names, which Feldman would not do.
Maybe that's why the Stand by Me star couldn't resist taking a shot at Lauer after his firing. "Interesting," the actor tweeted. "This might explain the hostile interview while I was trying 2 expose the #truth... Eh Matt?"
Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan continued her scorched-earth crusade against abuse in show business by applauding Lauer's exit. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Matt Lauer," she tweeted, tagging her post #ROSEARMY, a reference to her initiative to encourage people to "be thorns," break silence, and right wrongs.
Keith Olbermann
Political pundit Keith Olbermann used Lauer's termination to condemn not only the man, but also the management team that Olbermann thinks provided cover for Lauer for years. Olbermann tweeted that his former NBC colleague was "vindictive and tyrannical to everyone at NBC News and management repeatedly enabled him and buried the issue." Olbermann also said Lauer's alleged bad attitude toward other male staffers went "at least as far back as 1997."
Olbermann then proceeded to gloat about his supposed prior knowledge of the firing and revel in the afterglow.
Kathy Griffin
The day he was fired, Comedian Kathy Griffin tweeted: "Matt Lauer has been on my list for a while."
She also took the opportunity to plug her stand-up, which has unabashedly bashed those accused of abusing their power. "It's really too bad more Americans don't come to my shows," she said. "I pretty much recite the list in every show. Haha. I told you, my memory is long, my friends. I've been around a long time..."
Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise doesn't hate Lauer, but he did at one point find him to be glib—and it made for an intense and awkward encounter.
In 2005, while Cruise was promoting War of the Worlds, the actor stopped by Today for an interview with Lauer that devolved into Cruise denouncing the use of antidepressants and popularizing his Scientology-influenced anti-psychology beliefs. After the interview, Cruise reportedly fought to have his controversial words taken off the air to no avail, and Lauer later said there was a year-long "Cold War period" between the two.
Ann Curry
Former Today host Ann Curry has never come out and publicly said that she "hates" her old colleague, but when you add up all the gossip about these two, the case for Curry loathing Lauer becomes quite strong.
Lauer is widely reported to have been the driving force behind Curry's emotional ousting from the show in 2012. According to Radar Online, the duo's dynamic was not particularly warm while working together and has remained ice cold ever since. "Ann and Matt never made up after her firing," an NBC source told Page Six. "He believes the way she handled it made him look terrible, while she believes Matt played a major role in her downfall."
Brian Williams
Rumor has it that fellow newsman Brian Williams and Lauer were fiercely competitive during their time together on NBC–and not in a good way.
In 2014, Page Six reported that Williams allegedly refused to even introduce segments for the Today show because he supposedly wanted nothing to do with advancing Lauer's career. One source claimed Williams felt "like an orphan" because Lauer and his show were getting all the attention. Another NBC source denied such a feud existed.
Considering Williams was demoted in 2015 after he admitted that his "ego" drove him to embellish the news, perhaps he'll have some words of wisdom to share with Lauer as he attempts to rebuild his reputation.
Hillary Clinton
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is still smarting over an encounter with Lauer during a high-stakes moment in the 2016 presidential election.
Lauer served as the moderator in a televised "Commander in Chief Forum" on NBC in September 2016. During the program, Lauer questioned Clinton about her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state—an issue Clinton hoped would not be raised to any significant extent.
Clinton recalled that interaction with Lauer in her 2017 memoir, What Happened, saying the experience left her wanting to "shake some sense" into him and revealing that she was "ticked off" and "almost physically sick" by his line of questions. "The clock was ticking," she wrote, "and my thirty minutes to discuss serious foreign policy challenges was slipping away."
Kanye West
The "old reliable" of celebrity feuding: Kanye West had a heated face-to-face confrontation with Lauer on Today in 2010. At the time, West had garnered bad publicity for his infamous Taylor Swift mic-snatch at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards and for claiming "George Bush doesn't care about black people" on a live telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina. The rapper grew frustrated when Today replayed clips from those moments during his interview with Lauer.
"Yo, how am I supposed to talk if you're going to run the thing in the middle while I'm talking?" West protested. "Please don't let that happen again. It's ridiculous." It did happen. "I didn't need you guys to show me the tape in order to prompt my emotions or whatever," West said. The whole interview seemed to rub West the wrong way, with Lauer seemingly pressing the embattled star for an apology of some sort.
Though West emphasized that he did not hate Lauer, the rapper did tweet that his experience with the host left him feeling "very alone very used very tortured very forced very misunderstood very hollow very very misused."