Ann Curry is on the cover of Ladies’ Home Journal this month, and she talks with the magazine about succeeding Meredith Vieira as Matt Lauer’s co-anchor on Today.
“I was not expecting to become cohost,” she says. “Because you know what? After having the experience the last time where I was not asked to do this [after Katie Couric left], I pretty much decided that there is no ‘deserving’. Nothing is owed you.”
But upon getting the nod, “I was thrilled to pieces. But the biggest thing for me as I walked out of my boss’s office was that the last brick of sorrow I’d been carrying around since my dad died [in 2008] fell to the ground, because I was filled, suddenly, with his pride. It pushed every last bit of grief out of me because I could feel him say, ‘Ann, I’m so proud of you…The best thing you’re ever going to do, you haven’t even thought of yet. You’re just getting started.'”
Writer Judith Newman asks Curry if she would have stayed with the program if she’d not gotten the top job. “I’d still be here,” Curry tells her. “I’m loyal like a dog.”