NBC’s dismissal of “Today” host Matt Lauer for alleged sexual misconduct is sparking a video retrospective ― most notably, a 2012 clip of a sketchy interview with actress Anne Hathaway is making the rounds.
Hathaway appeared on “Today” to promote her film at the time, “Les Miserables,” but Lauer started the talk by asking about a paparazzi photo that was taken up her skirt a few days earlier at the film premiere. (That moment begins at the 1:08 mark.)
“Good morning. Nice to see you. Seen a lot of you lately,” Lauer said.
“Sorry about that,” Hathaway responded. “I’d be happy to stay home, but the film.”
“Let’s just get it out of the way,” he said. “You had a little wardrobe malfunction the other night. What’s the lesson learned from something like that — other than that you keep smiling, which you always do?”
Hathaway shot down his creepy query with a thoughtful response about exploitation.
“Well, it was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad on two accounts,” she said. “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 I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which takes us back to ‘Les Mis,’ because that’s what my character is.”
People on Twitter called Lauer’s interview “disgusting” and “sleazy.”
Other clips have emerged as well, including a stunning snippet that shows Lauer’s former co-host, Katie Couric, telling Andy Cohen in 2012 that Lauer pinched her butt a lot and a video in which Lauer said to Meredith Vieira, “Keep bending over like that. It’s a nice view.”