Where is Matt Lauer now? Former Today host’s life after Brooke Nevils sexual assault allegations explored

Television news personality Matt Lauer was fired by NBC in 2017 after the network received “a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” The announcement also included that NBC had “reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”

Two years later, the accuser identified herself as former NBC talent assistant and producer Brooke Nevils in Ronan Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators. In it, she offered details of her alleged harrowing experience.

Nevils accused Lauer of anal rape in his hotel room in Sochi, Russia, in 2014, when they traveled together as part of NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics. She also accused him of coercing her into sex at his New York City apartment.

Matt Lauer, 68, claimed that the allegations were “outrageous and categorically false, ignore the facts, and defy common sense,” in a 2019 letter to Variety. However, he admitted to having an “extramarital, but consensual sexual encounter” with Nevils.

In the wake of the scandal and subsequent firing, Lauer has kept a low public profile while living in the Hamptons, while occasionally visiting his New Zealand home, as revealed by an exclusive source to PEOPLE in November 2025.

However, he is preparing himself for a comeback. The insider told the outlet:

“Matt Lauer is doing well in his private life, and wants to get back into the media arena in some capacity, if not TV. He has talked to some people about it.”

Exploring Matt Lauer’s life after NBC ouster

Matt Lauer separated from his second wife, Annette Roque, in the aftermath of the 2017 accusations and his subsequent firing by NBC. Their uncontested divorce was filed in July 2019 and finalized in September, around the same time as Ronan Farrow’s book release.

Roque, who is a Dutch model, reportedly received $20 million in alimony and a Hamptons horse farm she jointly owned with her ex-husband.

The former couple shares three children: Jack, 24, Romy, 22, and Thijs, 18. According to PEOPLE Magazine’s exclusive source, Lauer has continued to be a “good father” to his adult kids and “spends time with them.”

Matt is still in a relationship with longtime acquaintance, publicist, and businesswoman Shamin Abas, whom he began dating in 2019, shortly after his divorce. The pair is “happy.”

However, the former Dateline NBC contributor is reportedly “still angry” with the way he was “treated by the industry,” especially the people he thought were his “friends.”

Amid the latest reports of Matt Lauer’s return to the limelight, it is noteworthy that another source told PEOPLE in late 2024 that the former anchor is “looking to” return.

“The current cycle of politics isn’t anything even people who have been doing it for a long time are really excited to cover.”

While Lauer has largely remained away from the spotlight, he was seen in a rare appearance at Don Lemon’s wedding in NYC in April 2024.

Before that, in October 2021, his former co-anchor Katie Couric wrote in her memoir, Going There, about her feelings in the wake of the misconduct allegations against Matt Lauer.

“I know Matt thinks I betrayed him, and that makes me sad. But he betrayed me, too, by how he behaved behind closed doors at the show we both cared about so much,” Couric wrote.

She added how their decade-long working and personal equation “devolved and ultimately deteriorated” in the aftermath of the scandal. Her book also included text exchanges between her and Lauer.

Around the same time, Couric spoke with then-host of the Today show, Savannah Guthrie, and shared that it took her a “long time to process” the scandal.

“As I got more information and learned what was going on behind the scenes, it was really upsetting and disturbing. It was really devastating, but also disgusting. I think what I realized is that there was a side of Matt I never really knew… I tried to understand why he behaved the way he did, and why he was so reckless and callous, and honestly abusive to other women,” Katie stated.

She also mentioned having “no relationship” with Matt Lauer, who at the time was reported to be “focused on his family.”

A source told Page Six in late 2021 that Matt and Shamin were spending “a lot of time” in the Hamptons and had known each other for several years.

“They very recently began dating. She is a lovely woman,” the insider added.

Notably, Matt Lauer wrote an opinion piece on Mediaite in 2020, accusing Ronan Farrow of failing to fact-check his sources for the book and calling it “shoddy journalism.” He claimed it suited Farrow’s “activist goals, as opposed to any kind of journalistic standards.”

Lauer further reiterated that Nevils’ accusations were false and accused Farrow of bias against NBC. Ronan, for his part, took to X and issued a direct response. He wrote:

“All I’ll say on this is that Matt Lauer is just wrong. Catch and Kill was thoroughly reported and fact-checked, including with Matt Lauer himself.”

In an April 2018 interview with The Washington Post, Lauer shared similar sentiments.

“I fully acknowledge that I acted inappropriately as a husband, father and principal at NBC. However, I want to make it perfectly clear that any allegations or reports of coercive, aggressive or abusive actions on my part, at any time, are absolutely false.”

Matt claimed he was silent for too long in order to protect his family’s privacy and shield them from further embarrassment.

During his first response to Variety, the former anchor noted that during an internal investigation, he admitted to having “past relationships with co-workers” but didn’t agree with “certain aspects” of the complaints against him. Regardless, he lost his job.

When Matt Lauer attended Jeff Zucker’s birthday party in May 2019, the former Today show executive producer and CNN chief assured employees and viewers that theirs was a personal friendship and that he would not be hiring Lauer on his network.

In the wake of the scandal, Matt has seemingly “lost a lot of friends.” A close source told PEOPLE in December 2021:

“People would check up on him for a while, but that's stopped to a degree. He just stays to himself, he doesn't really reach out to people very much anymore or engage them, and so he's been losing touch with a lot of people… He only wants to talk to people who are gonna take his side. He still feels like he got railroaded.”

The insider added about Lauer’s financial situation:

“When he left the 'Today' show, he didn't get paid a penny after he got fired. NBC stuck with that. He's presumably sitting on mountains of money, but then again, he had a lot of money in real estate.”

Trending

Now, Matt Lauer is once again trending after The Cut published an excerpt on January 28 from Brooke Nevils’ upcoming memoir, Unspeakable Things: Silence, Shame, and the Stories We Choose to Believe. The book, which is slated for a February 3 release, doubles down on her past accusations against Lauer, with never-heard-before details.

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