Ann Curry: I Still Don't Know Why I Lost My Job
It has been years since NBC fired Ann Curry from the Today Show and she still doesn’t know why.
Elle magazine talked to Curry and even years later she says she can’t seem to pinpoint good, bankable information that might explain what happened to her at Today, NBC News’s crown jewel and morning-news ratings juggernaut, where she occupied the cohost spot alongside Matt Lauer for one brief, awkward year. “I still don’t really understand,” she says. “I know I did nothing wrong. I know I was good at my job.
“They say where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she continues. “You can read the tea leaves. But you know, I’m a fact-based reporter, so it’s hard for me to go out there, with something so close to the vest. I don’t know. I don’t know.” Her voice grows louder, more exasperated. She believes she can help bring truth to power when it comes to a global pandemic, but not her own professional history. “I don’t know!” she says about her removal, before turning the question back outward: “Why?”
On June 28, 2012, she made her final appearance beside Lauer, telling the audience through tears: “This is not as I expected, to ever leave this couch, after 15 years [at NBC]. But I am so grateful, especially to all of you who watch.” At the end of the farewell, Lauer leaned over to kiss Curry on the side of the head, and she flinched, shrinking away from her colleague’s embrace—a fitting goodbye to a relationship that had long felt unnatural.
Even now, Curry still says it stings. “The bottom line is that it still hurts,” she says. “It honestly hurts really deeply, because I really think I did nothing wrong. But in spite of the pain of it, which still lingers, I know that I contributed to some people suffering less.