Billy Bush was only a Today cohost for five months before NBC fired him amid the 2016 Access Hollywood tape scandal. In that time, he claims, the men at the show did not like him — and that includes Matt Lauer.
Bush, 53, recalled on the Wednesday, July 9, episode of “Literally! With Rob Lowe” how Lauer, 67, called him after he was fired.
“He’s like, ‘I just can’t get past the irony that this happened,’” Bush said. “And he and I had a very stern conversation. I laid into him because I said to myself, ‘If I speak to him again I’m gonna lay into him.’ And I did.”
“I said, ‘I was at Access Hollywood for 15 years. I was the Big Cheese there like you’re the Big Cheese at the Today show,’” he continued. “‘Now I know we’re dealing between a Cadillac and a jalopy, but nonetheless, I was the main man there. And if a young guy who had joined us was a good guy and you know he’s a good guy and he’s helpful to the show and he’s good on the air and he’s got everything that’s good for the team, you could have stood up for me.’”
NBC fired Bush in October 2016 after the Washington Post released a 2005 tape of him and Donald Trump seeming to have a lewd conversation on a bus. Trump, now 79, was running for president when the tape was released. He can be heard describing how women will let him “do anything” because he is a star.
“Grab ’em by the p****. You can do anything,” said the now-president.
Bush, for his part, was heard saying that Arianne Zucker, who the pair were on their way to meet, was “hot as s***.”
The host issued an apology the same evening that the tape was released, saying he was “embarrassed and ashamed.”
“It’s no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago,” he continued. “I was younger, less mature and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry.”
Reflecting on that time years later, Bush said he believed Lauer could have done more to defend him.
“Have them suspend me, have them do whatever, but the blowing out of me and taking my entire livelihood and career and making me unemployable and just wiping me out for something that’s 11 years old, you should have stood up and you didn’t,” Bush said he told the former Today host. “And you didn’t because you’re small. You didn’t want me around. I just f***ing laid right into the guy and he said, ‘No, no, no, I defended you in private.’ I’m like, ‘No, you didn’t, get the hell out of here.’”
NBC fired Lauer in November 2017 after multiple women came forward accusing him of sexual harassment. He released a statement after he was fired saying that some allegations were “untrue or mischaracterized” but noted that “there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”
“I called him a few months later when he got fired and I said, ‘So how you doing?’” Bush said on Wednesday. “Here’s three books you want to read to help you start to get off your ass.”
