Brian Williams has yet to comment on his suspension from NBC News, but at an event at the 92nd Street Y Wednesday night, his daughter Allison said her father is “an honest man, a truthful man” who “cares so much about journalism.”
Williams appeared in conversation with NBC’s “Late Night” host Seth Meyers, just a short time after appearing at an event where reporters were warned not to ask her any questions about her personal life. Meyers, who described himself as “a dear friend” of the actress and her family, used his first question to ask: “how your family’s doing, how your father’s doing?”
“This has been a really hard time. We have also been feeling very lucky, counting our blessings. We have our health, we have each other,” Williams said. “It has been an incredible experience to experience the outreach from people we love — family, friends, and then people we don’t even know, strangers, just reaching out saying we want to see him back on TV.”
“One thing this experience has not done is shake my trust and belief in him as a man. He’s a really good man. He’s an honest man, he’s a truthful man. He has so much integrity, he cares so much about journalism,” she continued. “And yes, he’s a really good dad, but I know you can trust him because as any good daughter does, I’ve tested him on that so many times.”
The actress, who mentioned several times during the interview that she is extremely close with her family, said the past weeks have been hard on all of them, but “toughest on my dad.”
“My mom has been so strong and my brother [SNY sportscaster Doug Williams] has been amazing. My dad has always been there for us, 100 percent of the time, even sometimes before we knew we needed him. And so for us to be there for him is the least we can do right now,” she said.
Williams specifically mentioned her dad’s time in Iraq in 2003, which was at the heart of the controversy that led to Williams’s suspension.
“I was in ninth grade and there was a father-daughter dance at the end of that year. And before he left, he was assuming he’d be back in time for the dance. And as the date was coming, it didn’t seem like he was going to make it as he had promised. And a couple days before I was so upset, and I got a surprise call from Iraq, from my dad, and he was asking if I had a date for the dance,” she recalled. “That’s the kind of man he is, and I can’t wait until he’s back on TV.”