Matt Lauerâs Incredibly Creepy Anne Hathaway Interview Will Give You Chills
Matt Lauer
On Wednesday morning  NBC confirmed that they had fired morning news anchor  Matt Lauer .  Lauer  has served as the centerpiece of Today  which The New York Times calls âthe most important part of the NBC News franchise â since 1997. A memo from NBC News chairman Andy Lack cited âinappropriate sexual behaviorâ as the grounds for termination.
âOn Monday night â Lack wrote  âWe received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by  Matt Lauer . It represented  after serious review  a clear violation of our companyâs standards.â
While NBC took swift action against  Lauer  even before the allegations went public  itâs safe to assume that this story is far from over. As Lack himself acknowledged  âWhile it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years heâs been at NBC News  we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.â
In the wake of  Lauer âs unexpected departure  Today was forced to reckon with the story in real time. Lauerâs co-host Savannah Guthrie was tasked with reporting on the latest in a string of sexual misconduct stories  this time involving her âdear  dear friendâ and colleague. âHow do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?â an emotional Guthrie asked. âAll we can say is we are heartbroken; Iâm heartbroken.â
Like the other recently disgraced media men before him  Lauerâs career is now open for reexamination. One incident thatâs already been circulated and picked apart by social media is the Presidential Forum that  Lauer  moderated in September 2016. At the time   Lauer  was widely criticized for the way  he  interacted with candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton  with many accusing the Today host of employing a sexist double standard. In one article  âHow Sexism  Like Matt Lauerâs  Could Imperil the Nation â Adele M. Stan wrote  âWhen questioning Clinton   Lauer  was all alpha-male  interrupting  her  and tsk-tsking  her  for criticizing  her  opponent after he had asked  her  not to do so. But when paired with Trump  it became clear who was the alpha in that set-up. It clearly wasn't  Lauer   who allowed Trump to talk over him  and to evade specifics.â
While  Lauer âs tendency to interrupt Clinton repeatedlyâwhile letting Trump go largely unchallengedâwas certainly cringe-worthy  it may not be Lauerâs most painful on-air interaction. Anyone searching for an example of overt sexism need look no further than his 2012 Today interview with Anne Hathaway. The actress  who was promoting her film Les Miserables at the time  had had the misfortune of being photographed during a âwardrobe malfunction.â âI was getting out of the car and my dress was so tight that I didnât realize it until I saw all the photographersâ flashes â she reportedly said in response to the âdevastatingâ incident. As if the revealing photographs werenât enough  Hathaway was then grilled on the minor controversy by  Lauer   who opened the interview with a gross allusion to the intimate pics.
âAnne Hathaway  good morning  nice to see you. Seen a lot of you lately â  Lauer  greeted  his  guest. While Hathaway  who responded that  âIâd be happy to stay home â clearly had no interest in discussing the upskirt shots   Lauer  continued. âLetâs just get it out of the way. You had a little wardrobe malfunction the other night. Whatâs the lesson learned from something like that  other than that you keep smiling  which youâll always do.â To summarize:  Lauer   mistaking pervy paparazzi pics for actual news  asked an accomplished actress about a painful incident  phrasing the invasion of privacy as a personal failing (âwhatâs the lesson learned from something like that?â). To make matters even worse  he all but told Hathaway to smile through itâwhich is just what every woman wants to hear from a man whoâs talking down to her about her lack of underwear on national television.
Hathaway  to her credit  managed to own  Lauer   replying  âWell  it was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment  and rather than delete it and do the decent thing  sells it. And Iâm sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants  which brings us back to Les Mis  because thatâs what the character [Fantine] is. She is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and thereâs no social safety net so yeahâletâs get back to Les Mis.â
On Wednesday morning  NBC confirmed that they had fired morning news anchor   [TGT]  .   [TGT] has served as the centerpiece of Today  which The New York Times calls âthe most important part of the NBC News franchise â since 1997. A memo from NBC News chairman Andy Lack cited âinappropriate sexual behaviorâ as the grounds for termination.
âOn Monday night â Lack wrote  âWe received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by   [TGT]  . It represented  after serious review  a clear violation of our companyâs standards.â
While NBC took swift action against   [TGT] even before the allegations went public  itâs safe to assume that this story is far from over. As Lack himself acknowledged  âWhile it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over twenty years heâs been at NBC News  we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.â
In the wake of   [TGT]  âs unexpected departure  Today was forced to reckon with the story in real time. Lauerâs co-host Savannah Guthrie was tasked with reporting on the latest in a string of sexual misconduct stories  this time involving her âdear  dear friendâ and colleague. âHow do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?â an emotional Guthrie asked. âAll we can say is we are heartbroken; Iâm heartbroken.â
Like the other recently disgraced media men before him  Lauerâs career is now open for reexamination. One incident thatâs already been circulated and picked apart by social media is the Presidential Forum that  Lauer  moderated in September 2016. At the time   Lauer  was widely criticized for the way  he  interacted with candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton  with many accusing the Today host of employing a sexist double standard. In one article  âHow Sexism  Like Matt Lauerâs  Could Imperil the Nation â Adele M. Stan wrote  âWhen questioning Clinton   Lauer  was all alpha-male  interrupting  her  and tsk-tsking  her  for criticizing  her  opponent after he had asked  her  not to do so. But when paired with Trump  it became clear who was the alpha in that set-up. It clearly wasn't  Lauer   who allowed Trump to talk over him  and to evade specifics.â
While  Lauer âs tendency to interrupt Clinton repeatedlyâwhile letting Trump go largely unchallengedâwas certainly cringe-worthy  it may not be Lauerâs most painful on-air interaction. Anyone searching for an example of overt sexism need look no further than his 2012 Today interview with Anne Hathaway. The actress  who was promoting her film Les Miserables at the time  had had the misfortune of being photographed during a âwardrobe malfunction.â âI was getting out of the car and my dress was so tight that I didnât realize it until I saw all the photographersâ flashes â she reportedly said in response to the âdevastatingâ incident. As if the revealing photographs werenât enough  Hathaway was then grilled on the minor controversy by  Lauer   who opened the interview with a gross allusion to the intimate pics.
âAnne Hathaway  good morning  nice to see you. Seen a lot of you lately â  Lauer  greeted  his  guest. While Hathaway  who responded that  âIâd be happy to stay home â clearly had no interest in discussing the upskirt shots   Lauer  continued. âLetâs just get it out of the way. You had a little wardrobe malfunction the other night. Whatâs the lesson learned from something like that  other than that you keep smiling  which youâll always do.â To summarize:  Lauer   mistaking pervy paparazzi pics for actual news  asked an accomplished actress about a painful incident  phrasing the invasion of privacy as a personal failing (âwhatâs the lesson learned from something like that?â). To make matters even worse  he all but told Hathaway to smile through itâwhich is just what every woman wants to hear from a man whoâs talking down to her about her lack of underwear on national television.
Hathaway  to her credit  managed to own  Lauer   replying  âWell  it was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment  and rather than delete it and do the decent thing  sells it. And Iâm sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants  which brings us back to Les Mis  because thatâs what the character [Fantine] is. She is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and thereâs no social safety net so yeahâletâs get back to Les Mis.â