14 DAY TRIAL // In case you were holding on the hope that Matt Lauer will soon be fired from The Today Show over poor ratings and the debacle around Ann Curry’s departure, don’t anymore: he won’t be fired, he’s not going anywhere.
The denial comes straight from the Today boss Alexandra Wallace, who insists there are no plans to kick Lauer to the curb.
“There is absolutely no truth to this,” Wallace says for Page Six.
“There have been some recent outrageous claims regarding Matt and the Today show, and an awful lot of piling on from nameless, faceless sources. These stories are wrong and irresponsible,” Wallace stresses.
NBC News President Steve Capus also comes to Lauer’s defense, saying such rumors are but a reflection of our sad times, when there’s simply no more accountability to be had.
“Sadly, this is the era in which we live: Venomous tweets somehow threaten to drown out all of those who praised Matt for his coverage,” Capus says for the same media outlet.
The report that Lauer was more or less with a foot out the door came from Radar Online, which claimed to have it on very good authority that network and show bosses had finally realized it was time he too paid for the poor ratings of Today.
After he made Curry into the scapegoat and got her booted from the show after just one year, people were starting to notice that Lauer was truly the problem – and they were thinking about ways to cut the losses for the show.
One would be, allegedly, to have him fired, to have Curry brought back and to have someone else host with her, someone the entire staff could get behind.
As it turns out, none of that will happen anytime soon because Lauer isn’t going anywhere, he’s staying on The Today Show.