Two years after Ann Curry’s now-infamous exit from the “Today” show, Curry’s predecessor Meredith Vieira — who is returning to television with her own talk show set to debut this fall — weighs in on NBC’s handling of the transition in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Marisa Guthrie:
“That was such a bad time,” says Vieira, referring to the botched handover from Ann Curry, who replaced Vieira, to Savannah Guthrie in 2012. “I really felt for Matt a lot. And I felt for Ann, too. It turned so nasty, really nasty. Every day you’re reading this stuff that is just beyond cruel from angry, angry people who felt that Ann had been slighted and embarrassed and humiliated. And they basically pointed to one person on whom to take out all of their anger. I don’t know if I would have survived that.”
She says she did not offer Lauer advice through the turmoil. “I just told him I loved him and I was there for him. But I never sugarcoated what had happened. I thought it had not been handled smartly from the very beginning, because I don’t think they ever felt that was the right fit for Ann so they should never have put her in that position to begin with. And then the ending was so mishandled. But you know what, shit happens. People make mistakes. We all do.”
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