Matt Lauer’s rape accuser Brooke Nevils spoke out in her first televised interview months after releasing her book, Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame and the Stories We Choose to Believe.
“Matt Lauer, at that point, at NBC could literally do no wrong,” Nevils told CNN anchor Pamela Brown on Thursday, April 10, of the longtime Today anchor’s career before his 2017 firing. “It was unthinkable to imagine that it could be anything other than a misunderstanding.”
Nevils explained that her “brain almost just could not compute the idea that he could do anything wrong,” noting that it took her years to realize that she had been sexually assaulted.
“It took me years because what I felt was why did I become a completely different person?” she said. “Why am I doing these things that I don’t even understand why I’m doing?”
During the height of the #MeToo movement, Nevils alleged that she had been sexually assaulted by Lauer, now 68, during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Nevils has said she had drank too much and could not consent.
“I wrote an email making jokes about how I was so drunk I couldn’t open my hotel room door,” Nevils recalled on Thursday.
Nevils has claimed that she and Lauer continued to have “sexual encounters” upon returning to New York. On Thursday, Nevils explained that she thought that was “taking back control” of the situation at the time.
“Really, what I was doing was implicating myself in my own abuse. By the time I understood that I was trapped, I knew I was going to be blamed for all of it,” Nevils said. “I blamed myself.”
After Nevils made a formal complaint against Lauer in 2017, he was fired from his job at Today. The disgraced news anchor denied all the accusations in a 2019 letter, claiming their experiences were “completely mutual and consensual.” Nevils, who was a Today producer, took a leave of absence from NBC that eventually became permanent. She released her book, Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame and the Stories We Choose to Believe, which detailed several allegations against Lauer, in February.
Brown read a portion of Lauer’s 2019 denial to Nevils, who said it was “devastating” to hear.
“Is that easy for me to hear? No,” she added. “It makes me feel ashamed. But at the same time, I listen to that and I can’t believe I was ever alone in a room with that person.”
She added, “It’s hard to fathom how you could argue that you’re completely unaware that someone’s ability to consent might be compromised when you are in a position of power over a subordinate and you know that that subordinate’s job is, essentially, to do whatever they have to do to keep you happy.”
If you or anyone you know has been sexually assaulted, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). A trained staff member will provide confidential, judgment-free support as well as local resources to assist in healing, recovering and more.
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