Matt Lauer’s accuser Brooke Nevils has revealed that she did not call the police after the disgraced news anchor allegedly raped her because of his high profile.
The former NBC employee writes in her upcoming book, “The Unspeakable,” according to excerpts obtained by The Cut.
“But it was a complete waste of thought, because I knew I would never let anyone do that to me, and I was in a terrible Russia,” added Nevils, who claimed the former Today show host raped her in a hotel room during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
“Who should I call? President (Russian Vladimir) Putin? The KGB?”
Nevils said the only people overseas with her at the time of the incident were those associated with the network, including the anchor who at the time was “Today’s longest-serving anchor and had the largest contract in morning TV’s 60-year history, reportedly worth $25 million a year.”
“In the news industry at the time, his perspective was reality, and if you disagreed with it, you were wrong,” she wrote.
“Everything must have been my fault. I gave him the wrong idea, couldn’t clarify, couldn’t persuade, couldn’t stop him, couldn’t find a graceful way out of the situation without getting him in trouble,” Nevils wrote.
“I certainly shouldn’t have bled. The only thing to do is smooth it out, and it was my actual job to smooth things out for the talent. At least I knew how to do it.”
“If[she]had been somewhere else, she could have asked for help, talked to someone, called her mom, or at least done a Google search,” Nevils said.
But in Russia, “all surveillance is legal, and as a precaution, NBC had made copies of the hard drives of all of our devices (including our personal items) before leaving New York so that when we returned, we could compare the two to check for malware.”
“If I was using my phone, computer, or internet, NBC would know about it,” she wrote.
“The only doctors available were employed by NBC. All I knew in Russia were other NBC employees. I was surrounded by people whose careers depended on Matt’s success, just like mine,” Nevils claimed.
Elsewhere in her memoir, Nevils describes the aftermath of the alleged rape, saying she woke up in a hotel room in Russia with “blood caked on my underwear and the sheets underneath.”
The former NBC talent assistant claimed in her book that she was “drunk and alone,” physically “unstable” and mentally “dazed (and) frantic” when Lauer “insisted on having anal sex” in a “rotating room.”
Instead of going to the police, Nevils left the bloody hotel sheet in the corner of her room, threw away her underwear, and continued her day as if nothing had happened.
Ms Nevils claimed that she had several sexual encounters with Mr Lauer after the alleged rape, but that their “pre-existing relationship” made it “very unlikely that she would have immediately recognized it as an assault”.
In November 2017, Ms. Nevils filed a complaint with NBC accusing Ms. Lauer of sexual misconduct. Within 24 hours, he was disconnected from the network.
The then-news anchor also split from his wife, Annette Locke.
Lauer responded to Nevils’ claims in an open letter, denying that he raped her, but admitting to having had an extramarital affair with her.
After Lauer lost his job, other misconduct allegations against the former news personality surfaced.
Mr. Lauer denies all charges against him. Since the scandal, he has been living a quiet life in the Hamptons.
Nevils first described the rape allegation on Ronan Farrow’s “Catch and Kill” in 2019, then took a leave of absence from NBC and never returned.
That same year, NBC said in a statement: “As we said at the time, Matt Lauer’s conduct was appalling, appalling and reprehensible, which is why he was fired within 24 hours of our first learning of the charges. Our hearts break again for our colleagues.”
Representatives for Lauer and NBC did not immediately respond to Page Six’s requests for comment.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-330-0226.
