When the sordid details of Harvey Weinstein’s escapades came to light, several friends urged Nevils to take her information to Meredith Vieira. Distraught, Vieira then had Nevils bring the information to NBC Universal human resources through a lawyer. Lauer was fired. However, Nevils’s story wasn’t over.
She learned that Noah Oppenheim, president of NBC, and Andrew Lack, chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, tried to emphasize that the incident had been neither criminal, nor an assault. “She claims this caused her to throw up,” Farrow wrote. “Nevils’s work life became torture.”
Two Sides to Every Story
Lauer has denied these harsh and heart-rending allegations. In his statement, he maintained that it was purely an extramarital affair that began in 2004 in Sochi, Russia and it was purely consensual.
In addition to this statement, Nevils had more inappropriate encounters with Lauer back in New York. Farrow wrote that sources close to Lauer emphasized that she sometimes initiated the contact.
Scared of the Consequences
Nevils said in Farrow's book that it seemed more transactional than an actual relationship. Nevils was, apparently terrified about the control Lauer had over her career.
After her encounters with Lauer ended, Nevils said she told “like a million people” about her situation with Lauer. Farrow writes: “She told colleagues and superiors at NBC” when she moved to NBC's Peacock Productions to work as a producer, she told her bosses. “It was no secret.”
A Toxic Work Environment
Farrow continued, detailing how hard it became for Nevils to continue working at NBC. Despite the fact that human resources had promised Nevils she would remain anonymous, revealing the assault had happened at Sochi narrowed the field of possibilities greatly.
Soon it was common knowledge. Nevils went on medical leave, and despite not wanting money, received a seven-figure payout in 2018.
What to Say
The network proposed a script to Nevils, telling her what to say and how to act. It asked her to suggest she had left NBC to pursue other endeavors, that she had been treated well, and that NBC News was a positive example of sexual harassment.” A...positive example of sexual harassment?
We're not sure what that means, and we almost don't want to know. NBC tried and tried to quash the story, according to Farrow. Oppenheim even asked Farrow if the investigation was really worth it, and suggested that no one even knows who Weinstein is.